After months of campaigning, the governor of Florida made official on Twitter on Wednesday, May 24, his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential elections. His main Republican rival, Donald Trump, mocked the technical difficulties that marred DeSantis’s announcement .
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There was little suspense. The rumors, in the last days, were more and more insistent. On Tuesday, May 23, Elon Musk himself lifted the veil a little more; In an exchange with the Wall Street Journal, the head of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter said: “I’m going to interview Ron DeSantis and he has a big announcement to make.”
On Wednesday, May 24, a new, but essential, step was taken when the conservative governor presented a document to the US electoral authorities formalizing his great project. Only the ad was missing.
And it arrived shortly after 6:00 p.m. Miami time (22:00 GMT). In a message posted on Twitter, former Navy officer Ron DeSantis made it official: “I’m running for president to lead America’s great comeback.” These few words are accompanied by a one minute and 14 second video.
The governor, who will face former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, was supposed to talk about it with Elon Musk, still on Twitter, in a Space. But serious technical problems interrupted the broadcast, which is watched by hundreds of thousands of users.
Technical problems
For almost 25 minutes, there were a series of technical incidents, repeated interruptions, and long silences. It was impossible to hear the governor of Florida. To fill the gap, music even had to be broadcast, and all because of the excess of connections, more than 700,000 listeners at the same time. A record and the Twitter servers couldn’t handle it. “Thank you for his patience”, “his microphone is not open” … the head of Twitter tried to manage the chaotic situation as best he could. “We’re reallocating server capacity to handle the load here, it’s really crazy,” he said.
The governor also tried to display his vision of the country, using Florida as an example, which he has transformed into a laboratory of conservative ideas. “I pledge to be an aggressive leader who will address the important issues,” he promised.
But his message appeared to be clouded by a series of missteps surrounding the launch, which also spattered his primary opponent, Donald Trump. “I know Ron. The way he handled his announcement, that’s how he would run the country,” the former US president reacted, all while he posted an image of a rocket exploding at takeoff.
The winner of the Republican primary will face the Democratic candidate in November 2024, most likely Joe Biden. The octogenarian leader was also quick to mock Ron DeSantis’ campaign launch. “This link here works,” the president-candidate joked in a Twitter post in which he linked to his fundraising campaign.
DeSantis needs a new push
The governor, on whom many conservatives have pinned their presidential hopes after his triumphant re-election in Florida in November 2022, is now seriously lagging behind Donald Trump, according to numerous opinion polls. The latter has skyrocketed in the polls since his indictment. Yet the day after his successful November re-election as Florida governor, Ron DeSantis trailed Donald Trump in the polls. The New York Post, a conservative tabloid owned by the Murdoch Group, headlined: “DeSantis, the future.”
But DeSantis made a series of mistakes that chilled the Republican leadership, recalls our Miami correspondent David Thomson. In March 2023, he described the war in Ukraine as “a simple territorial dispute.” His public appearances are often considered socially awkward by commentators and he comes off as cold and awkward in these interactions. The main ballast of the conservative father of three children is, in effect, the lack of charisma, pointed out from all fronts. And the Trump side does not hesitate to attack him. Trump “would crush him in a televised debate,” according to Thomas Kennedy, an opponent of conservative Ron DeSantis.
The other declared Republican candidates -Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson- currently barely exceed 5% of voting intentions.
