Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) will challenge former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

"I’m running for president to lead our Great American Comeback," DeSantis tweeted Wednesday.

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DeSantis, a two-term governor who rose to national prominence for his opposition to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, is the only other Republican candidate, declared or otherwise, who consistently polls in double digits, at least according to early primary surveys.

DeSantis, who is set to announce his campaign during a Twitter Space event with owner Elon Musk and Craft Ventures co-founder David Sacks, has sought to differentiate himself as a more electable, effective Trump, telling donors last week “you have basically three people at this point that are credible in this whole thing.”

“[President Joe] Biden, Trump, and me," the governor said during the phone call hosted by his super PAC Never Back Down. "I think of those three, two have a chance to get elected president — Biden and me.”

“We must reject the culture of losing that has impacted our party in recent years," he told voters in Iowa the week before. “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.”

DeSantis, a Yale University and Harvard Law School-educated U.S. Navy veteran who was a legal adviser to SEAL Team One before being deployed to Iraq, has already been harangued by Trump on social media, during rallies, and in interviews. Trump and his super PAC MAGA, Inc., for instance, have criticized DeSantis for his entitlement and tax reform policy positions, his lawsuits against Disney, and a 2019 anecdote about him eating a cup of chocolate pudding with three fingers instead of a spoon, spending $12.5 million during the last two months alone.

Never Back Down has doled out $10 million to respond to Trump in kind, but the money has not stopped DeSantis's precipitous polling decline that coincided with a Manhattan grand jury indicting the former president for hush money payments he made before the 2016 election. Since Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg decided to charge Trump, DeSantis' average support has dropped from 30% to 19%, according to RealClearPolitics. Simultaneously, Trump's has spiked from 46% to 56%.

After having to clarify his description of the Russia-Ukraine war as a "territorial dispute," DeSantis's struggle to form working relationships with fellow Floridian lawmakers while representing Jacksonville in Congress for six years also caused him embarrassment in March when they endorsed Trump over him. Despite breaking fundraising records last year as governor, certain Republican donors have withheld their backing this cycle over Florida's six-week abortion ban and the governor's crackdown on woke school curricula.

Abortion has emerged as the most striking policy difference between DeSantis and Trump so far, with the former president claiming "many people within the pro-life movement" contend the governor's six-week prohibition is "too harsh.”

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DeSantis's announcement, timed with the conclusion of Florida's 2023 legislative session, coincides with Sen. Tim Scott's (R-SC) campaign launch this week. Trump, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, two-term Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), and multi-millionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy entered the race earlier this year. Vice President Mike Pence and one-time Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) are expected to do the same soon too.