DeSantis is the 'biggest collapse of a presidential campaign in modern history': ex-GOPer
21 January 2024
Former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL) didn't hold back when talking about the end of Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign.
After the big announcement on social media, Jolly spoke with MSNBC, explaining that the campaign had been a disaster from the beginning.
"Today was the day, and I believe the last 24 hours was showing all the signals that the Florida governor's advisers were counseling him. Now is the time to drop out," explained Jolly. DeSantis had canceled several television appearances and never flew to New Hampshire after his distant second-place finish in Iowa.
Read More: MAGA's emergency quarterback: A President DeSantis is actually worse than President Trump
More humiliating, however, was an NBC report that the staff at the pro-DeSantis super PAC were working on a 1,000-piece puzzle in the office, implying that they didn't have anything better to do with their time.
"You have to consider the context of this," Jolly continued. "This is probably the biggest collapse of a presidential campaign in modern political history if not all of American history. He was coming off a rushing victory of 19 points in the swing state of Florida. He had upwards of $150 million, was polling ahead of former president Donald Trump, and Rupert Murdoch used a New York Post cover to call him the future. Ron DeSantis had everything going for him. He started the presidential primary campaign on third base and stole second."
On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, DeSantis was hovering around 43 percentage points behind Trump and 52 percentage points behind him in South Carolina. Worse, DeSantis was 65 percentage points behind in Nevada.
"In the withdrawal of Vivek Ramaswamy, it was clear voters were turning now on Ron DeSantis," said Jolly. "He was at risk of becoming the gadfly in this primary. What we saw was a candidate, and this is where I think his advisers started to work on him in the last 24 hours — Ron DeSantis was not about to lose 24, and he was at risk of losing 2028. He was at risk of losing the party."
Read More: An Iowa obituary for Ron DeSantis’ presidential dreams
Jolly went on to say that DeSantis never really went after Trump so he wasn't trying to go after MAGA so much as he was running adjacent to MAGA. It was Trump who went after DeSantis early and often enough that it broke him down even more.