Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has finally announced his 2024 presidential run via a Twitter spaces event with the platform’s CEO, Elon Musk.
“It will be the first time that something like this is happening on social media,” Musk said at a Wall Street Journal event on Tuesday. It certainly was a one-off: never before has a major candidate for the office of US president made their announcement in such stilted, glitchy and modestly viewed circumstances.
Crikey takes a look at some of the declared nominees in the expanding Republican field.
Ron DeSantis
DeSantis has established himself as the most likely Republican to beat Donald Trump to the nomination. He was reelected Florida governor last year by the largest margin in the state for 40 years.
He is, according to both friends and foes, highly intelligent, driven, hard-working and calculating. “He is Trump with a brain,” say his aides. Others note a distinct lack of personal charm and a tendency to be awkward and aloof. Indeed, of the event with Musk, The Atlantic wondered: “Who came up with the galaxy-brained idea of matching up two of the most socially awkward people in American public life for a spontaneous discussion on Twitter?”
DeSantis’ biggest gamble is his prolonged fight with Disney after its workforce pressured the corporation into criticising Florida law prohibiting public school teachers from discussing sexuality and gender identity in the classroom. DeSantis, as a champion of conservative values like free speech, the unfettered hand of the market, and job creation, has attempted to wrest oversight of the land belonging to a private company and threatened them with new regulations, taxes and even the possibility of constructing a prison nearby.
In response, Disney, expressing disgust at this big taxing anti-business rhetoric, has scrapped plans to build a new campus in central Florida that would have reportedly employed 2000 people. It’s quite the falling out — in 2009, DeSantis approved of Disney’s role in American life enough to choose it as his wedding venue.
Having become governor largely thanks to the former president’s endorsement, and taking on many of the MAGA preoccupations, the battle between DeSantis and Trump is likely to get messy.
Tim Scott
Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, declared his candidacy days before DeSantis. From South Carolina, Scott bills himself as the candidate “the far left fears the most”. He has received an uncharacteristically warm response from Trump, though a look at the former president’s full comments give an indication of why:
“Good luck to Senator Tim Scott in entering the Republican primary race,” Trump posted on his Truth Social website. “It is rapidly loading up with lots of people, and Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable.” Scott is an evangelical Christian who posits an optimistic “personal responsibility” narrative. He has around 2% support according to recent polls.
Nikki Haley
The former South Carolina governor and Trump’s former United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley announced her challenge to her one-time boss — breaking a promise not to run that she had made two years earlier — in February. Haley was one of the many Republicans to veer from full-throated condemnation of Trump to active support between 2016 and 2017.
“I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK. That is not a part of our party. That’s not who we want as president. We will not allow that in our country.” She said that in 2016, two months or so before accepting Trump’s nomination for UN ambassador.
Trump, again, was relatively cordial given her apparent disloyalty, perhaps thanks to recent polling that had shown Haley’s 11% support would be more likely to stymie DeSantis than himself.
Donald Trump
And, of course, there is Trump himself, still the favourite to gain the nomination — if he’s not in jail. Earlier this year, he faced the first criminal charges ever levelled at a former US president, an indictment stemming from a $130,000 hush-money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election campaign, plus an alleged 34 false business statements that Trump made to cover up other crimes.
At the arraignment, Trump was not subjected to the handcuffing and mugshot that would usually take place before a court appearance, an attempt to deny Trump the iconography this would provide his 2024 bid. Trump’s team mocked a mugshot up anyway and put it on a T-shirt to raise campaign funds.
Trump may be facing three more criminal charges, all more serious than this one: the Department of Justice is investigating the removal of government documents from the White House after he left office, which were taken to Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. The department is also running investigations into his role in the riots of January 6 2021 and the wider efforts to overturn the 2020 election result.
