DeSantis scoffs at question about 2024 as Haley enters race
Ryan King
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) scoffed at a question Tuesday about his 2024 ambitions in light of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s entrance into the political scrum.
DeSantis, who has widely polled as the top GOP hopeful next to former President Donald Trump, has been tight-lipped about his plans but is reportedly mulling a possible summertime campaign launch.
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“Nikki Haley announced her presidential run today. Do you plan on following suit,” a reporter asked him at a press conference.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” DeSantis quipped with a laugh.
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Haley became the first prominent Republican to challenge Trump to become the GOP standard bearer in 2024, seemingly preempting her tease of a “big announcement” in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.
Since clinching a second term as governor, DeSantis has been peppered with questions about his presidential ambitions but has strenuously sought to evade such questions and parry any onslaughts from Trump directed his way.
DeSantis has topped Trump in some surveys of the 2024 Republican contest and has been consistently competitive with him. The Florida governor is currently in second place among his 2024 GOP peers, according to the latest Race to the WH polling aggregate.
Throughout his second term, DeSantis has continued wading into the culture war skirmishes, recently championing legislation to curb “woke” environmental, social, or governance considerations in state and local government investment decisions.
His cultural crusades and criticisms of stringent COVID-19 restrictions during the thick of the pandemic catapulted him to stardom within the GOP.
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Eyeing DeSantis’s rise and fretting about a potential threat, Trump has hurled fiery screeds against him, seeking to knock him down a notch. Privately, Trump has reportedly been beta-testing his signature political epithet strategy against DeSantis, musing about nicknames such as “Meatball Ron” and “Shutdown Ron.”
In the face of such onslaughts, DeSantis has refrained from getting ensnared in a tit-for-tat with Trump, a notorious rhetorical brawler. He has often sidestepped the attacks by pointing to his record.