Following his online presidential campaign debut, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will engage in traditional retail politics in important early voting states this week. This will be his first opportunity to interact with voters since announcing his intention to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
DeSantis will spend two days campaigning in Iowa before moving on to New Hampshire and South Carolina. This tour will be widely monitored to see if the conservative, policy-focused governor can demonstrate the interpersonal skills that some have criticized him for lacking.
The Republican front-runner in the campaign, former President Donald Trump, will follow closely following. Trump holding events in Iowa on the same day DeSantis campaigning in New Hampshire is a hint that the race for the nomination is ready to heat up.
Tuesday will mark the beginning of DeSantis’ campaign, which he will start out in Des Moines, Iowa. Rather than holding a traditional campaign rally, he chose to announce his candidacy in a rocky online chat with Twitter’s founder, Elon Musk. Trump and his rivals made fun of the debacle.
For DeSantis, Iowa is an important state. The nation’s first nominating contest will take place in Iowa in February of next year, a state with a sizable evangelical constituency that has occasionally disagreed with Trump. Sen. Ted Cruz of the United States defeated Trump in the 2016 caucuses.
In the weeks that follow, nomination contests will be held in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
DeSantis has criticized what he terms a “culture of losing” in the party since making his announcement, claiming that he is the only Republican capable of defeating Democratic President Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election.
DeSantis has stepped up his criticism of Trump, alleging that during his one term in office, Trump departed from conservative ideals by supporting immigration reform and forceful anti-COVID epidemic measures.
He told a conservative news website called The Daily Wire on Friday that “this is a different guy than 2015 or 2016.”
DeSantis’ campaign reported raising $8.2 million on the first day of his campaign, indicating that he will have substantial financial support from party donors hoping to prevent Trump from being nominated.
