Florida governor Ron DeSantis has secured a number of endorsements in New Hampshire and Iowa in recent days, as well as key endorsements in his home state of Florida as he is expected to soon join the 2024 presidential race.
DeSantis made headlines over the weekend as he interacted one-on-one with voters at two events in Iowa, shedding his reputation as a leader who struggles with retail politicking. By contrast, former president Donald Trump, the frontrunner, canceled his own rally in Des Moines on Saturday because of “severe weather.”
The optics were a win for DeSantis, who also announced the endorsements of more than three dozen Republicans in the first-in-the-nation caucus state one day earlier. The endorsements, which amounted to more than a third of the Republicans in the state legislature, were more than any GOP candidate received in 2016.
Meanwhile, Trump introduced his own list of 150 endorsements from “elected and grassroots leaders” in Iowa. But Axios reported that at least three people on the list were surprised they had been included, given they were not consulted and remain undecided.
Former GOP congressional candidate Gary Leffler told Axios, “I lean Trump, but I 100 percent believe that DeSantis is the future of the party for 2028.” He said he met with both teams on Monday to discuss his support.
Laura Carlson, vice president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women and founder of the club Republican Women of Central Iowa, also said she remained undecided and now questions whether others on the list actually endorsed the former president. The third person was an unnamed longtime GOP activist.
On Tuesday, Never Back Down, the PAC backing DeSantis, also announced endorsements from 51 lawmakers in New Hampshire, including four legislators who previously backed Trump just weeks ago.
One of those legislators, Juliet Harvey-Bolia, told NBC News that she is actually “endorsing both.”
“DeSantis has a lot of promise for the future, and Trump is great now,” the lawmaker said.
The other three, state Representatives Brian Cole, Lisa Smart and Debra DiSimone, did not explain the switch.
DeSantis also received two key endorsements in the Sunshine State on Tuesday from state Senate president Kathleen Passidomo and state House speaker Paul Renner.
“Gov. DeSantis has a proven record of delivering on the pro-family, pro-economic ideals that not only will keep Florida free but will be of critical importance in a 2024 presidential election,” Renner said.
Passidomo, meanwhile, called DeSantis “exactly the kind of leader we need for our country” and said, “I look forward to supporting him for president.”
The endorsements come as a RealClearPolitics average of national polls has Trump leading the race with 55 percent support. DeSantis is a distant second with 21 percent support.
Last month, eleven of Florida’s 20 Republican members of Congress snubbed DeSantis and endorsed Trump. The endorsements came from Representatives Carlos Gimenez, Matt Gaetz, Brian Mast, Anna Paulina Luna, Cory Mills, Greg Steube, Byron Donalds, Vern Buchanan, Gus Bilirakis, Michael Waltz, and John Rutherford.
Trump, for his part, has remained firmly in the spotlight in recent weeks. A Manhattan jury found him liable for defamation and battery in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll. He participated in a CNN town hall just one day after the verdict and mocked Carroll, who has accused Trump of raping her in a dressing room in a Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan in the mid 1990s. During the town hall, Trump also touted his false claims that the 2020 election had been rigged.
Trump also recently called a ban on abortion after six-weeks of pregnancy that DeSantis signed into law in Florida “too harsh.” Bob Vander Plaats, an evangelical leader in Iowa, reacted to the comment in a tweet saying the Iowa Caucus door “just flung wide open.” Iowa governor Kim Reynolds has signed a similar six-week abortion ban in the state.
DeSantis on Saturday called on Republicans to “reject the culture of losing that has infected our party in recent years.”
“If we get distracted, if we focus the election on the past or on other side issues, then I think the Democrats are going to beat us again,” he said.