After months of speculation, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis officially filed paperwork to run for president in 2024 Wednesday.
He was expected to announce his candidacy Wednesday evening during a Twitter Spaces event with company owner Elon Musk. That event started off with some technical difficulties. More than 500,000 appeared to be in the space as of 6:15 p.m. ET Wednesday.
NBC News, CNN and The Verge confirmed Wednesday morning that DeSantis would join Musk for the event.
Twitter user Mario Nawfal remarked on the tech issues in a separate Twitter space event held at the same time. As of 6:20 p.m. ET, Musk’s space appeared to have been ended. Around five minutes later, it was back up.
"I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback," said DeSantis during the event. He also said that he wants to fight against the "woke mind virus."
DeSantis, 44, is a Florida native who graduated from Yale and Harvard. He worked with the U.S. Navy and as a federal prosecutor before he was elected as governor in 2019.
The governor is popular in Florida, where he won the gubernatorial election by the largest margin in 40 years last November, according to WUFT. His current term ends in 2027 and he has recently been busy signing legislation and promoting projects such as an initiative to remove Burmese pythons from the wild.
In November and December – shortly after the Florida election – some polls even saw DeSantis pull ahead of GOP 2024 presidential front runner, former President Donald Trump. However, recent polls show that Trump, who announced his candidacy in November, has surged ahead again.
Morning Consult polling updated Wednesday showed that Trump had a 38-point lead over DeSantis ahead of the Twitter Spaces event. Both lead the pool of potential GOP primary candidates, which includes: former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former U.S. House member Liz Cheney, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), former U.S. House member Asa Hutchinson and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
Even as Trump pulled far ahead of other GOP candidates in that poll, DeSantis had a slightly higher overall favorability rating (43.7%) than Trump (43.4%), according to FiveThirtyEight.
On the national scene, DeSantis is possibly most well-known for his support of the notorious “Don’t Say Gay” bill regarding discussion of LGBTQ topics in classrooms, as well as other legislation related to the LGBTQ community. These issues have landed him in a public feud with the Walt Disney Company, which owns the Walt Disney World resort and theme park in Orlando, Fla.
Although Trump, 76, supported DeSantis during his initial run for governor, he has recently levelled criticism against his new opponent for the GOP nomination. During a town hall event this month with CNN, Trump said he thought a six-week abortion ban DeSantis signed might be “too harsh” and added that he thinks the governor has “no personality.”
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