Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis strongly believes that former President Donald Trump will bag a huge victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary.
Speaking to reporters at the South Carolina State House Senate Chamber on Tuesday, he said that there is “no question” that Trump will beat his rival Nikki Haley in more votes.
In his words, “There’s no question that South Carolina is going to be a big victory for Donald Trump because he appeals to core Republicans in a way that Nikki Haley just does not or is not trying to.”
The former GOP presidential candidate who dropped his bid in January also told reporters that he did not say that certain people should not run for president.
“If you have a path, you have every right to be running. But if the path isn’t there, then I think: At what point is the purpose of this? And I think that would actually just be how everyone looks at it,” he said.
He also criticized Haley’s appeal to non-conservative voters whom she relies on for votes in primary states that allow Democrats and Independents to vote. According to him, that is a sign that the former U.N. ambassador does not have Republican support.
“What I didn’t understand about Nikki — and I still don’t understand it today — is we have a voter base in the Republican Party. And I think if you look at the Iowa results, it’s a good example. Eighty-five percent of the registered Republicans voted for either Trump or me, effectively…so that’s just a big conservative base, right? To try to appeal to people who aren’t a part of that base for a primary — I just didn’t understand that,” he stated.
“It was clear to me after…Iowa that she just didn’t have support amongst Republicans, and I’ve never seen anyone win a Republican nomination by focusing on non-Republican voters. It just doesn’t work,” he added.
DeSantis endorsed Trump after he dropped out, encouraging Republican voters to vote for Trump instead of Haley.
BREAKING: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drops out of 2024 presidential race, endorses Trump https://t.co/XmtJV5D3Dy
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 21, 2024
“He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear — a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism — that Nikki Haley represents. The days of putting Americans last, of kowtowing to large corporations, of caving to woke ideology, are over,” he said at the time.
