Concord , United States, Jan 21 (EFE) – The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, announced on Sunday that he was abandoning the race for the Republican presidential nomination and gave his support to former United States President Donald Trump (2017-2021).
With his withdrawal, the internal contest of the Republican Party is a two-candidate affair: former President Trump and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
“We don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign,” De Santis said in a video broadcast on social networks, two days before the crucial New Hampshire primary.
In his message, he said that: “it is clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.”
DeSantis reiterated that he has had “disagreements” with Trump, but assured that he is a much better choice than the current president, Joe Biden.
“He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear,” said the governor, adding that this si what Haley represents, “a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism.”
DeSantis, governor of Florida since 2019 and representative of the hard wing of the party, launched his candidacy in March at a time when polls showed him as the only person capable of beating Trump in the primaries, but his image has deflated in the last year.
In the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15, the first contest of the Republican race, De Santis came in second, behind Trump and ahead of Haley.
But polls put him in third place, well behind his two rivals, in the key New Hampshire primary, which will be held next Tuesday.
In fact, the governor abandoned campaigning in the northeastern state on Saturday and canceled several interviews he had scheduled with US television networks for this Sunday.
Although Trump is the big favorite in the primaries, Nikki Haley has turned to campaigning in New Hampshire to close the gap and establish herself as an alternative to Trump within the party. EFE
er-aaca/ics