On January 21st, Ron DeSantis dropped out of the Republican primaries, only 2 days before the New Hampshire primaries. This is surprising news, as DeSantis had many events scheduled, and showed no signs of dropping out beforehand. However, it is clear why he did it. Many New Hampshire polls showed him below the 10 percent threshold needed to obtain delegates, and his lackluster showing in Iowa didn’t help his case. In the background, DeSantis was losing donors fast. In short, the Florida governor did not have a viable path forward. But how did he get to this point?
After the 2022 midterms, DeSantis was seen as a rising star in the Republican Party. He had just won re-election by 20 points, and was able to pass many high profile conservative bills. On the other hand, nearly all Trump endorsed candidates had lost in a supposed red wave year, which caused many GOP leaders to see Trump as a weakness.
After reading that last paragraph, you may be wondering: What caused DeSantis to fail? Well, the first problem is that he kicked off his candidacy very late. While Trump kicked off his comeback bid in November of 2022, DeSantis waited all the way until May of 2024 to make his announcement. This gave ample time for Trump to fundraise, shore up support, and attack DeSantis. The second reason is that DeSantis didn’t make many appearances with mainstream media early in his campaign which gave him less name recognition and exposure. While he tried to rectify his mistakes with town halls later in the campaign, it was too late.
Now you know what led up to this moment. But how will DeSantis’s drop out affect the now 2-way race between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump? For starters, DeSantis immediately endorsed Trump after suspending his campaign, and even criticized Nikki Haley in the ad. Furthermore, DeSantis had billed himself as a younger, more effective Trump on the campaign trail, so it is safe to assume that most DeSantis voters will switch over to Trump. This development will effectively hand New Hampshire to Trump, which will effectively end Haley’s campaign, as she is losing to Trump by landslides in every other state. In summary, I predict that Trump will be the 2024 Republican Presidential nominee.