Republican 2024 hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) Twitter campaign debut “did not reflect” the governor’s positive skills, according to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“It certainly wasn’t probably the best send-off that DeSantis could have hoped for in terms of running. He’s been a very smart guy. He’s been a remarkably good governor of Florida, and last night did not reflect any of those positive skills,” Gingrich told Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria.
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DeSantis announced his 2024 bid on Twitter on Wednesday night, differentiating his presidential rollout from others with a Twitter Spaces event accompanied by CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur David Sacks. But technical difficulties, which company officials blamed on Musk’s large Twitter following, hampered the 2024 debut.
“That was, I think, a very interesting challenge last night. You can’t tell whether they really underestimated the size of the number of people who were going to come to Twitter or whether some of the folks who work for Elon Musk were happy to have a crash because it’s, after all, a pretty left-wing employee group,” Gingrich said.
Critics of the Florida governor, such as former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, mocked the glitch-ridden launch. DeSantis’s campaign later claimed that the Twitter Spaces event and announcement video amassed over 30 million views within the first 15 hours.
DeSantis remains Trump’s top GOP primary rival despite trailing him by double digits in most polling.
“Running for governor is a different league than running for president. And to run for president against Donald Trump has, in the past, not been a very positive experience for Republicans. There were 15 other people in the race in 2015 and ’16. Not a single one of them grew,” Gingrich said. “Trump is a very formidable competitor.”
“The dilemma for Gov. DeSantis or any other candidate is you sooner or later are going to have to take Trump head-on. The problem is people who are for Trump are really for Trump. So you may, in fact, be alienating the very voters you want,” Gingrich added.
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Gingrich contended that entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy might be the “most interesting new candidate” because he is a “complete outsider” like Trump. He also surmised that Biden is “in trouble” on various fronts, such as the economy and the border, which may elicit a stronger Democratic primary challenger later this year as a result.
DeSantis is set to jump-start his 2024 campaign next week by visiting three states, starting with Iowa on Tuesday.
