Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is placing the blame for his failed White House marketing campaign on “checked-out” voters, and never on his personal many missteps.
In his first interview since dropping out of the presidential race, DeSantis instructed Blaze TV’s Steve Deace that the blame is on Iowa caucusgoers who rallied behind front-runner Donald Trump though many didn’t like him.
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“They did not want to see Trump nominated again, but they had basically been told that it was inevitable, that it was over,” DeSantis instructed Deace on Tuesday. DeSantis, who misplaced to Trump in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, added that these voters have been “checked out” and had “just totally dropped out of the process.”
Despite his assaults on Trump, together with admitting that the previous president lies about elections, DeSantis introduced the top of his marketing campaign on Sunday and endorsed Trump.
“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 [former South Carolina Gov.] Nikki Haley represents,” DeSantis mentioned in a video announcement.
Evan Vucci by way of Associated Press
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Unmentioned in DeSantis’ marketing campaign postmortem have been a few of the different causes he misplaced, together with his obsessive assaults on the LGBTQ+ group, libraries, abortion rights and Disney which will have turned off voters.
His marketing campaign spent a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} solely to see little change in his ballot numbers, pouring $53 million into Iowa alone and simply profitable 21% of the ultimate vote within the state caucuses.
Perhaps most damning for DeSantis’ marketing campaign was his personal obvious lack of enthusiasm and character. DeSantis was routinely lambasted for his robotic have an effect on round constituents, usually grimacing as an alternative of smiling in images and movies, his arms hanging limply at his sides.
“To me he never looked very happy,” one Iowa political operative instructed HuffPost in December.
DeSantis was additionally routinely mocked ― together with by Trump himself ― over his awkward habits, together with his selection of footwear and a rumored behavior of consuming pudding cups with three fingers as an alternative of a spoon.
The Florida governor instructed Deace he’d take into account working once more “if we have a country left in 2028.”