Ron DeSantis drops out of race

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) dropped out of the Republican Presidential nomination race today. Now the race really is the two-person race Ambassador Nikki Haley said it was. The other – or rather, first – person in the race is Donald J. Trump. In fact his campaign gave hints of his withdrawal last night. On his way out, he fired a telling Parthian volley at Ambassador Haley and endorsed Trump wholeheartedly.

Ron DeSantis drops the first hints

Video and X influencer Benny Johnson, shortly after noon today, dropped the first hints that Ron DeSantis might be withdrawing.

Johnson noted that DeSantis canceled appearances on NBC-TV’s Meet the Press and CNN’s Sunday morning equivalent. He quoted this post by Election Wizard:

Johnson also carried footage of Vivek Ramaswamy calling on Gov. DeSantis and Amb. Haley both to drop out.

Some who replied to Election Wizard suggested then that he intended to “help Nikki’s numbers” – an interesting turn of phrase. Why didn’t that user speculate that DeSantis would endorse Ambassador Haley?

Then this morning, Election Wizard published a two-post thread quoting NBC as calling the Ron DeSantis campaign “a total failure to launch.”

Note the embedded photo in the second post. It shows the governor’s Iowa campaign office chief solving a jigsaw puzzle in the campaign office for several hours. Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit had more on that jigsaw-puzzle faux pas. Apparently it happened a week before the Iowa Caucuses. Hoft also found this post by Jeff Roe as he abruptly left the campaign last month:

X influencer ALX took a screencap of Ron DeSantis’ upcoming-events page. Note: “No events.”

And then the announcement

Then at 2:57 p.m. EST today, Ron DeSantis made it official:

Note: that Winston Churchill quote is not authentic. The site CheckYourFact confirmed: the Daily Caller News Foundation investigated the quote and found no record of Churchill saying that. So did the International Churchill Society. This inauthentic quote has been floating around for four years – but why did Ron DeSantis use it?

Nevertheless, DeSantis made his point. He castigated the open border, out-of-control spending, and indoctrination of children. He acknowledged the reality that he does not have the votes to get the nomination. Apparently his distant second-place finish in Iowa forced him to pause and reflect. Then, after announcing the suspension of his campaign, he fired the Parthian volley:

… we can’t go back to the Old Republican Guard of yesteryear – a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism – that Nikki Haley represents.

The reaction to his announcement on X concurred in only one thing: yes, he needed to drop out. Some responders, including some fairly prominent names, were somewhat less than gracious. But one – Jack Posobiec – wanted more:

Laura Loomer pledged to blackball any member of the Ron DeSantis campaign who applied for a job with the Trump campaign:

Then at 5:43 p.m. EST she actually offered to take over the Ron DeSantis account and three others.

One of them is DeSantisWarRoom. She had already noted that the entire staff running that account was on layoff.

Loomer also noted something else: Amb. Haley refuses to drop out.

Then at 6:11 p.m. EST, she posted this:

Disclaimer

At this point CNAV must issue a disclaimer and a warning. Searching for the name Laura Loomer on X retrieves a large number of accounts, some of which have Laura Loomer’s profile and cover image and other profile information, but does not retrieve the authentic Laura Loomer account.

Only one account exists that Laura Loomer owns and controls. That account is @LauraLoomer. DO NOT – we repeat, DO NOT – mention or reply to any other account having numbers or letters appended to it. All are inauthentic. CNAV has already alerted her to the problem, though she probably knows it already.

This wouldn’t be such a problem by itself, except that the real Laura Loomer account name does not appear in search results. For that, blame the X Trust and Safety Team, because no one else would be capable of producing that non-result.

Whither Ron DeSantis – and what happens next?

Presumably Ron DeSantis will return to Florida and go back to governing full-time. Florida, unfortunately, has felt its absence. Not only has it dealt with a natural disaster, but a special election recently flipped a legislative seat to a Democrat. Local pundits blamed the governor’s absence for this.

More to the point, now the race is a two-person race, again as Nikki Haley said. But again, patriotic Americans have no reason to support her. She is a Trojan mare for the Democratic Party – and possibly for the World Economic Forum. Her public statements support no other inference.

New Hampshire holds its primary in two days. After that, South Carolina holds its primary – and Trump can show that Nikki Haley is no one’s “favorite daughter.”