Global Courant 2023-05-24 00:19:13
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will launch his 2024 presidential campaign Wednesday night at a social media event with Elon Musk, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
DeSantis will state that he is seeking the Republican nomination at a live, audio-only Twitter Spaces event at 6 p.m. ET Wednesday, the sources said. The Twitter conversation is moderated by Musk ally David Sacks.
Later Wednesday, DeSantis will appear on Fox News to talk about his campaign.
Musk, the high-profile tech billionaire who bought Twitter last year, said that he intends to support DeSantis in 2024.
News of their event was first reported by NBC News.
The governor’s plans for launching a bid for the White House have shifted this year, ABC News reports.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Florida Family Policy Council annual dinner gala in Orlando, Fla., May 20, 2023.
Marco Bello/Reuters, FILE
One of the early ideas was that DeSantis would tout his wins after the current session of the Florida Legislature closes in May and well into June, waiting as long as possible to formally announce a run for 2024, having known sources told ABC News.
But as speculation grew that he was in fact preparing to run, and as former President Donald Trump and Trump’s political operation unleashed a wave of attacks, the governor and his team pushed back his timeline, scrapping even preliminary plans to establish an exploratory committee. and moving a formal announcement date to May instead of June, sources have said.
Aside from his Twitter event Wednesday, DeSantis’ team also has plans for an official kickoff in his hometown of Dunedin, outside of Tampa, according to sources. That event is tentatively scheduled for the week of Memorial Day, but sources have warned details could change.
The governor will also meet with donors at a two-day event in Miami starting Wednesday.
He will enter the Republican primary field as Trump’s biggest rival for the nomination. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found DeSantis to be Trump’s closest potential opponent among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.
Of the six best-known candidates, Trump landed 51% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, while DeSantis landed 25%. Still, a majority of those voters said they would be happy with Trump (75%) or DeSantis (64%) as their presidential candidate.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at an Iowa GOP reception on May 13, 2023 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Stephen Maturen/Getty Images, FILE
DeSantis held a phone call with donors and supporters last week where he took on Trump head-on.
“You basically have three people right now who are credible in this whole thing,” he said, according to two people on the phone.
“(President Joe) Biden, Trump and me. And I think of those three, two have a shot at being elected president: Biden and I, based on all the data in the swing states, which is not great for the former president and probably insurmountable because people don’t want to see him.” , he said.
On Tuesday, Trump’s team responded to news of DeSantis’ impending announcement by criticizing him for evading scrutiny.
“Announcing on Twitter is perfect for Ron DeSantis,” a Trump adviser told ABC News. “That way he doesn’t have to deal with people and the media can’t ask him questions.”
Hannah Demissie, Jay O’Brien and Olivia Rubin of ABC News contributed to this report.
