Florida Governor and former GOP presidential nominee Ron DeSantis will travel to South Carolina and hold a media availability at the State House at 5:15 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, the same day that Haley delivered her "State of Race" speech.
The obvious question is, what is DeSantis doing in South Carolina? He dropped out of the race before the New Hampshire primary and endorsed former President Donald Trump. We know that the Florida Governor and former United Nations Ambassador and Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) had their share of bouts during debates and throughout the GOP primary. There has not been much news about DeSantis' trip nor has there been much speculation about what the trip could be about, but according to Florida Politics, DeSantis will address South Carolina legislators.
When DeSantis appeared on Fox News' "One Nation with Brian Kilmeade," he said that there were many Democrats during the Iowa Caucus for Haley.
The thing was, is there were 7,000 Democrats who showed up and switched to Republican on the night of the caucus. I was at a couple of these caucus sites. These were very liberal Democrats. They had N-95 masks on. They had shirts that had liberal slogans on, and that was a core part of her strategy was to appeal to those people. Her strategy has been to appeal to people who are kind of stock Republicans, but that’s just not going to work in a Republican primary. It’s definitely not going to work against somebody who’s as well-known and has already been president, like Donald Trump.
He also blasted Haley's record as South Carolina Governor and contrasted her record with his in Florida when he was on the campaign trail. He asked supporters in Haley's home state if they could name a single achievement by her as governor.
Nobody raised their hand. If you spoke to 1,000 Republicans in Florida and you asked them what I achieved as governor, you’d have hands shooting up. Being in any elected office, it's not just being a potted plant, it's not just doing what the donors want. It's actually leading and delivering results. I’m sick of politics being about entertainment.
DeSantis was popular in South Carolina, as there was a coalition of "Veterans for DeSantis," and he picked up several endorsements, including ten endorsements after Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) dropped out of the race.
As DeSantis is set to address South Carolina legislators, we are not sure what his goal is, but he could be there to criticize Haley or bolster Trump's support in the state and make the case for the former president to his base, assuring them he is for Trump.