Ron DeSantis officially launched his long-awaited 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday, signalling he will be taking Donald Trump head on for the Republican nomination. DeSantis enters the race as the strongest challenger yet to the former president and current GOP frontrunner in most polls.
The Florida governor held a Twitter Spaces event with its owner Elon Musk that was initially delayed. Just a few hundred thousand people tuned in for the audio-only livestream with DeSantis, but even with that relatively small audience for a virtual online assembly, it was vexed by crashes and delays for half an hour. The result was a tsunami of memes and comments mocking the right-wing politician’s “failure to launch” and raising new questions about whether Musk’s drastic cutbacks at Twitter have hurt the platform. The event began with over 20 minutes of technical glitches, hot mic moments and half-said conversations before the livestream abruptly cut out. “The servers are straining somewhat,” Musk said at one point, perhaps unaware that his mic was hot, at least briefly.
For 25 minutes, the only person not talking was DeSantis. At 6.26pm (local time), he finally announced himself. “Well,” he opened, “I’m running for president of the US to lead our great American comeback.” DeSantis joked in a fundraising pitch later in the evening that he “broke the internet”. While organisers sought to highlight the event’s popularity — the DeSantis camp said it had raised $1 million online in one hour – Democratic presidential candidate and incumbent Joe Biden’s team was quick to capitalise on the glitches, tweeting a link to a fundraising page with “This link works”.
Long viewed as the most formidable challenger to twice-impeached Trump, DeSantis boasts deep midwestern roots, a large campaign fund, a list of ultra-conservative legislative wins and an unblemished record of election victories. While Trump has dominated headlines with his legal woes, DeSantis has presented himself as the tip of the spear in the struggle of ordinary Americans against progressive values he sees as authoritarian and divisive. DeSantis did not mention Trump by name. But he did sketch out some of the contrasts he is expected to sharpen in the coming months. “We must look forward, not backwards,” he said. “We need the courage to lead and we must have the strength to win.
DeSantis intends to sell himself as a younger, drama-free and more conservative alternative to Trump, 76. But while Trump retains a steadfast national base, DeSantis faces the challenging task of assembling his own coalition from the GOP’s disparate factions. He intends to appeal to voters who strayed from the former president and Republicans who never liked Trump in the first place – all while trying to avoid angering Trump’s longtime backers.
The Florida governor held a Twitter Spaces event with its owner Elon Musk that was initially delayed. Just a few hundred thousand people tuned in for the audio-only livestream with DeSantis, but even with that relatively small audience for a virtual online assembly, it was vexed by crashes and delays for half an hour. The result was a tsunami of memes and comments mocking the right-wing politician’s “failure to launch” and raising new questions about whether Musk’s drastic cutbacks at Twitter have hurt the platform. The event began with over 20 minutes of technical glitches, hot mic moments and half-said conversations before the livestream abruptly cut out. “The servers are straining somewhat,” Musk said at one point, perhaps unaware that his mic was hot, at least briefly.
For 25 minutes, the only person not talking was DeSantis. At 6.26pm (local time), he finally announced himself. “Well,” he opened, “I’m running for president of the US to lead our great American comeback.” DeSantis joked in a fundraising pitch later in the evening that he “broke the internet”. While organisers sought to highlight the event’s popularity — the DeSantis camp said it had raised $1 million online in one hour – Democratic presidential candidate and incumbent Joe Biden’s team was quick to capitalise on the glitches, tweeting a link to a fundraising page with “This link works”.
Long viewed as the most formidable challenger to twice-impeached Trump, DeSantis boasts deep midwestern roots, a large campaign fund, a list of ultra-conservative legislative wins and an unblemished record of election victories. While Trump has dominated headlines with his legal woes, DeSantis has presented himself as the tip of the spear in the struggle of ordinary Americans against progressive values he sees as authoritarian and divisive. DeSantis did not mention Trump by name. But he did sketch out some of the contrasts he is expected to sharpen in the coming months. “We must look forward, not backwards,” he said. “We need the courage to lead and we must have the strength to win.
DeSantis intends to sell himself as a younger, drama-free and more conservative alternative to Trump, 76. But while Trump retains a steadfast national base, DeSantis faces the challenging task of assembling his own coalition from the GOP’s disparate factions. He intends to appeal to voters who strayed from the former president and Republicans who never liked Trump in the first place – all while trying to avoid angering Trump’s longtime backers.