Ron DeSantis has suspended his campaign for president and endorsed Donald Trump. His decision marks a spectacular implosion for a candidate once seen as having the best chance to dethrone Trump as the Republican Party’s nominee in 2024. Last Monday, DeSantis suffered a devastating 30-percentage-point loss to Trump in the Iowa caucuses, leaving him without an obvious pathway to the nomination.
DeSantis flew home to Tallahassee on Saturday after campaigning in South Carolina. He had been expected to appear at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Sunday afternoon. Instead, he released a video on social media saying he and his wife had “prayed and deliberated on the way forward”.
He said it was clear that “a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance” and added: “Trump has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear”.
His withdrawal leaves Nikki Haley as the only rival to Trump for the Republican nomination, and she has changed tactics in advance of the next Republican primary, in New Hampshire on Tuesday. In the 11th hour of her pivotal presidential campaign in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley ended months of shadowboxing against Donald Trump with a series of stinging criticisms that called into question his mental proficiency to engage in a second term in the White House.
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During a Sunday morning of sunshine and snow, in a school library in Derry, Haley repeated her assertion that the former president has repeatedly lied about her in his advertisements and statements.
Haley requires either a win in this high-profile Republican primary or to at least challenge closely among the electorate. Haley is the only standing alternative to a repeat of the acrimonious 2020 election campaign between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and she told the crowded room that American needed a change from both figures.
“The majority of Americans disapprove of Trump and Biden. Think about that. Do we really want to have two presidential candidates in their 80s?”
Among a broad chorus of “Noooo!” a lone voice spoke up about the presence of senior citizens in the room and Haley took up that point.
“No, let me explain that, because I’m not being disrespectful when I say that,” she clarified.
“What I’m saying is – and why I say we need to have mental competency tests in Congress. These are people making decisions on our national security, on the future of our economy. We all know seniors who can run circles around us. This is the most pressured job in the country. You can’t make a mistake on this.
“What happened yesterday is just a fact. Trump goes on and on multiple times saying I prevented the security on January 6th in the Capitol. I wasn’t even anywhere near the Capitol. I wasn’t in office. The reality is he was confused. He was confused the same way he said Joe Biden was going to start World War Two. He was confused the same way that [he said] he ran against President Obama. It was Hillary Clinton. These things happen because the more you age, you decline. Look at Joe Biden. He is totally different now to what he was two years ago. That’s what happened. And Congress has become the most privileged nursing home in the country.”
[ Trump rally flexes Maga muscle for the New Hampshire faithfulOpens in new window ]
It was a bold gambit by Haley and strikingly more aggressive to the cautious tone she maintained in the earlier months of this campaign. Many Haley supporters expressed frustration that she has not been more vocal in her denunciation of Trump, who entertained a big crowd at a rally in a Manchester hockey arena on Saturday night. Haley spent her 52nd birthday weekend making appearances at restaurants and small venues throughout New Hampshire, in keeping with the intimate and personable tradition of this high-profile primary.
“So, in this race, I’ve seen what you’ve seen. I have seen the commercials that you’ve seen. And God bless Donald Trump: he’s lying in every single one of them. It’s very telling. If you have to lie to win, you don’t deserve to win.”
The polls suggest that Trump will win anyway, deservedly or not, unless Haley’s late condemnatory plea provokes an unexpected march among voters on Tuesday. - Additional reporting: New York Times
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