Four Key Reasons DeSantis Won't Run in 2024

Topic: Elections

The mainstream media, as well as the entertainment industry, relies on drama, palace intrigue, and mysterious “what ifs?” to keep its dwindling audience watching its awful programming.  After all, no one wants to look forward to a 49-0 football score, or in the event of a pending political drubbing, a juggernaut steamrolling a field that is fundamentally unable to compete.  I nailed Nikki Haley’s presidential announcement in my predictions for 2023, which I released in January, and I am confident more of my predicted candidates will emerge in the field.

One candidate I did not name as a predicted entry is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a glaring omission that did not go unnoticed by my SubStack readers.  Indeed, the hypothetical boxing promotional poster is already being drawn up by the mainstream media, political commentariat, truth community, and even the dark puppet masters of the world.  Without Trump versus DeSantis in 2024, the Republican primary will have all the intrigue of a season-opening football matchup between LSU and Central Rhode Island Technical College, played in the sweltering August heat in Death Valley, with the smell of booze and corndogs so strong it could be cut with a knife.

The media needs a Trump v. DeSantis race so they have something other than the looming Democrat replacement of Joe Biden to discuss for 18 months, and also because it ignites division on the political right in an era known for serious infighting.  Because DeSantis’s emergence in the race is chalked up as such a certainty in the collective media, the collective right seems to find the contest a foregone conclusion.  After all, President Trump is taking aim at the entire potential field, including DeSantis, on the regular.  However, a vast majority of my Truth Social followers responding to my question on DeSantis’s potential candidacy consider it unlikely Ron will run in 2024.

Seven out of every eight voters in that very crude, unscientific poll believe DeSantis will not run.  Granted, this is not something that would meet scrutiny for publication in a scientific journal, but this certainly reflects a wide gap between individual and collective perception of such a race occurring.  For the record, this author recognizes DeSantis as the most effective “big state” governor in the country, who is leading the state that has come to be the “king” Republican state over the rapidly weakening Texas.  Any commentary about DeSantis and his potential candidacy should be read simply as my observations on that particular topic, and not a treatise on any of the sidebar conversations maintained by his harshest critics.

Four Reasons DeSantis Won’t Run in 2024

1)    My Cal Ripken, Jr., Theory

In the 2001 MLB All-Star Game, superstar Alex Rodriguez pulled out all the stops to make Cal Ripken, Jr., play shortstop, the position he had played for most of his career before age and decline mandated a move to third base, a position requiring less mobility.  The position was Cal’s position, and he was going to go out playing his position in the last season of a Hall of Fame career.

Likewise, with most of the Republican base believing Trump was robbed in 2020, first dibs for pursuing the office of the Presidency belong to Trump.  It is simple psychology for people to seek to correct a wrong in the simplest way possible, which is why the election integrity movement sought, and even still seeks, to restore Trump to the office as soon as possible.  It took Trump’s November campaign announcement to force the eyes of most election integrity activists to the future after 24 months of looking to the past.

DeSantis is behind Trump in magnitude, but clearly ahead of any announced or potentially announcing candidates, like Haley, Mike Pence, Glenn Youngkin, or even Greg Abbott.  DeSantis would therefore need to spend all his campaign energy attacking Donald Trump, a man he owes his entire governorship to and has modeled his leadership plan after.  In attacking Trump, DeSantis would refute himself.

Without Trump’s endorsement in the 2018 Republican primary, DeSantis would have lost to Adam Putnam and never had the opportunity to win re-election in 2022 by the largest margin ever for a Republican in the Sunshine State.  Trump was also instrumental in calling out the steal in Broward County that made the 2018 race between DeSantis and crackhead Andrew Gillum excruciatingly close.

Shortstop was Ripken’s.  The Presidency is Trump’s.

2)    The Trump Base is not the “GOP” Base

Donald Trump transformed the electoral map in 2016 in such a way that the Democrats couldn’t properly engineer the cheat, executing a working-class coalition shift and preserving the suburban, conservative, and evangelical Republican bases in such a way to prevent a Hillary Clinton presidency and legitimatize the populist revolution we currently abide under.  A simple review of voter registration trends in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida strongly suggest that the influx of new “Republican” primary voters was brought about by the shift to Trumpism, which the mainstream media hate and many “conservative” media sources now riding MAGA’s coattails once treated with contempt.

I believe Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and North Carolina would be won by any Republican nominee in a fair election at this point; however, only Donald Trump can even begin to think of carrying the Industrial Midwestern states of Pennsylvania and Michigan that loom as critical pieces on the 2024 election chess board.  These states that went to Trump in 2016, and certainly would have again in a free and fair election in 2020 and by larger margins, and their voters would be so disgusted by the Republican establishment lining up to crater the Trump campaign that they will not provide the needed enthusiasm edge in a hypothetical 2024 election to get DeSantis, or anyone else, over the top.

“Trump or bust” is a very real attitude in the Industrial Midwest.

3)    The Timing Doesn’t Work

Ted Cruz took a lot of heat for announcing his candidacy in the 2016 Republican Presidential primary, nearly three years after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012.  In fact, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke whipped him with this fact during their 2018 Senate race, implying Cruz only cared about his own political ambition and not the people of Texas.

Likewise, not only did DeSantis just win re-election, he won it by a record margin for a Republican in a state that now, for the first time in history, has a voter registration advantage favoring Republicans (this change happened in 2021).  It is safe to say that Floridians expect DeSantis to continue in his role as governor and would be disappointed to see him abandon ship to take on the most popular Republican President since Reagan, especially given that Trump is also popular in Florida and was atop the Republican ticket when it abandoned its annoying 2008 and 2012 glitches that dispensed Democrat electoral votes.

DeSantis would need to announce his campaign here in the next four months, as the Presidential election cycle typically begins in mid-summer of the preceding year.  That would mean DeSantis would need to announce in the next four or five months to be in with the rest of the field.  I consider this to be highly unlikely given my previously stated point that most of the Republican base considers Trump as the rightful occupant of the White House to this day, and polling has him outpacing DeSantis two-to-one, if polling is to be considered at all.

4)    2028 Gives DeSantis an Empty Net

Donald Trump is limited by the 22^nd Amendment to just one more four-year term in the White House.  That amendment was ratified in 1951 and came after President Franklin Roosevelt thoroughly abused the time-honored tradition established by George Washington in which Presidents served only two terms.

The entire election integrity movement is prepared for an electoral nightmare in 2024, and it should be.  After all, the federal elections since Trump took office in 2017 have been nightmares, all designed to keep the state and federal governments under establishment rule and out of the hands of the people, who may elect uncontrollable candidates of any political persuasion.

If Trump manages to overcome an entire electoral map of cheating and draw an inside straight equal to or greater than 270 electoral votes, he will be limited to four years in the White House.  If he is, God forbid, deprived of his rightful position by institutionalized fraud, I would consider him much less likely to run for the Presidency in 2028.  DeSantis will have turned 50 just before the 2028 election and will almost certainly have two outstanding terms as Florida’s governor behind him and could begin campaigning almost immediately after leaving office in anticipation of that year’s election cycle.

DeSantis, barring any revelations or surprises, would be the odds-on favorite for 2028 if and only if he waits his turn.  Furthermore, his run would follow up four years of what would likely be an excellent Trump encore, or, God forbid once again, a nationwide plea for conservative leadership.

Two Reasons DeSantis May Defy My Prediction and Run in 2024

1)    Big Money and Legacy GOP Retreads are Lining Up Behind Him

Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Karl Rove, and other opponents of a populist Republican Party have identified DeSantis, accurately, as the only elected official on the political right who could even possess the slightest chance of being the Republican nominee while not being named Donald J. Trump.  This is not the lead-in to opinion regarding DeSantis, his character, or his administration, but rather the simple realization that this is merely an earlier rendition of when the establishment begrudgingly got behind Ted Cruz in a last ditch effort to prevent Trump from becoming the GOP nominee in 2016.  That ship crashed heavily upon the rocks of the Indiana primary shortly after it left its harbor.

There is substantial research detailing the massive war chest at DeSantis’s disposal, whether those funds are to be used in 2024, or later.  Grassroots patriots are concerned that these ties to big political money and legacy GOP personalities may render him ineffective, such as in the case of one former GOP President from another conservative stronghold (keep reading).

2)    George W. Bush Did It

If DeSantis were to resign from the governorship to run for the Presidency, he would barely finish 10 percent of the second term he was elected for.

While it seems unlikely on the surface for DeSantis to jettison the Governorship this soon after re-election, one must only rewind a couple decades to see that George W. Bush ran for President on the same exact timeline for the 2000 campaign, which he announced on June 14, 1999, just seven months after dealing the Democrats in the former Solid South state of Texas a heavy-handed savage ass beating, garnering just shy of 70 percent of the vote.

Conclusion

DeSantis has the best shot of winning the Republican nomination in 2028, when it is unlikely Donald Trump will be running.

In the best case, a hypothetical President DeSantis could sweep his policy reforms into the White House and may have great success if and only if the crisis of election fraud can be ended.

In the worst case, a popular and competent governor tied to special interests may go the way of George W. Bush, a popular governor turned corrupt, bureaucratic and establishmentarian President.

George W. Bush – 1998 Re-Election Map

Ron DeSantis – 2022 Re-Election Map