DeSantis kicks off 2024 U.S. presidential campaign after Twitter event plagued by technical problems

Twitter crashed repeatedly on Wednesday during a highly anticipated live audio chat between Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, hampering the politician’s announcement he is running for the Republican presidential nomination.

DeSantis, 44, had posted a video shortly before the planned event on social media, setting up several combative months on the campaign trail with former president Donald Trump.

“We need the courage to lead and the strength to win,” DeSantis said in the minute-long video. “I’m Ron DeSantis, and I’m running for president to lead our great American comeback.”

The Spaces session on Twitter resumed about 25 minutes after it was supposed to kick off, with about 241,000 users tuning in to listen.

“Failure to Launch,” “Crashed” and #DeSaster were among the trending Twitter topics in the U.S. during the chat session.

In between crashes, U.S. President Joe Biden poked fun at the shaky rollout of DeSantis’ presidential bid by tweeting out a fundraising appeal: “This link works.”

Elon Musk defended the launch. “You can tell by the mistakes that it’s real,” he said.

DeSantis’s Republican opponents piled on. The lead strategist for former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s super PAC, Mark Harris, was merciless: “Failed soft launch? Check. Failed announcement? Double check. We look forward to Ron DeSantis’ failed campaign.”

Trump went further: “Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!” he wrote on his social media site. “Is the DeSantis launch FATAL? Yes!”

Still, DeSantis’ campaign said it raised $1 million US online in the first hour after the announcement. “We had a huge audience,” DeSantis said in a subsequent interview on Fox News when asked about the technical difficulties.

“It was the biggest they ever had. It did break the Twitter space. We’re really excited about the enthusiasm.”

Would be 1st president from Florida

DeSantis would be bucking some history if he wins the Republican nomination for 2024. There’s never been a Florida-born president, or a president who has been a Florida governor or senator — Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio both tried but were vanquished by Trump in 2016. (Trump’s ardent supporters would argue he was the first president from the state despite spending decades in his New York birthplace, given that Florida has for many years been his primary residence.)

At the time of inauguration of in 2025, DeSantis would be 46 years and four months old, making him the youngest president since John F. Kennedy in 1960 and the third youngest overall. However, for every question about his inexperience on the national or international stage — he was a U.S. congressman for five years with a modest profile — a contrast in a general election with incumbent Joe Biden, whose vigour at 80 has been questioned, could be advantageous.

To be clear, there are other announced candidates in the race, but they all need to figure out how to appeal to mainstream Republicans turned off by Trump while also attracting conservative voters who may be unsure about supporting Trump in 2024, even if they have backed him before.

“[DeSantis] can’t win the nomination with only non-Trump votes,” said Sarah Isgur, a veteran of several Republican presidential campaigns. “He has to peel voters away from Trump.”

Strong start crucial

Nationally, Trump has been an overwhelming frontrunner in polls of committed or likely Republican voters. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this month showed Trump backed by 49 per cent of Republicans and DeSantis by 19 per cent.

Former White House aide Karl Rove told Fox News this week that there are still many voters, even Republican leaning, who don’t know much about DeSantis beyond news headlines.

“It’s a mistake, in my opinion, to spend too much time on polls and not enough time on why is it that president Trump deserves a second term in office because of a forward-looking vision,” he said.

More importantly, national polls have limited applicability to a race that will be decided state-by-state.

DeSantis is polling at a respectable rate in first-up Iowa, where Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Joni Ernst attended one of his recent speeches. It’s a state that Trump lost in the 2016 Republican race, to Ted Cruz.

Unlike the Democratic primaries — in which candidates who receive at least 15 per cent of the vote in a state accumulate delegates going forward in the race — the Republican process involves many winner-take-all states where the defeated candidates receive no delegates, as well as other aspects that reward name recognition. Therefore, a strong start is crucial for DeSantis or any Trump challenger.

Relations sure to sour

Polling in the states that follow Iowa — New Hampshire and South Carolina — appears be to be more foreboding for DeSantis, but the first candidate debates are still three months away. Much can happen before early 2024.

“It is a tough road, but he’s got a good start,” Rove said.

The two men have a history, once congenial. Trump considers himself the DeSantis kingmaker having endorsed him in Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial contest. But attack ads narrowly focused on one or the other — and not the entire Republican field — are already being seen on U.S. airwaves, courtesy of political action committees supporting the two men.

Trump’s legal woes are an X factor. There’s little sign through surveys that Republican primary voters are affected by his setbacks so far — including the civil trial that this month found him liable for sexual abuse and his pending 2024 criminal trial for falsifying business records in a hush-money case. Decisions have yet to be made, however, whether charges will be filed in more consequential probes related to Trump’s pressure campaign to change the 2020 election result or his apparent unwillingness as a private citizen to part with classified White House records.

Cumulatively, more indictments could take a toll. There’s been speculation, based on her legal findings, that a Georgia prosecutor will decide on indictments in a 2020 election probe in August, right when the Republican primary debates begin.

‘Governing is not about entertaining’

In speeches clearly directed at a national audience, DeSantis has focused on what he has been able to accomplish in Florida, as well as his overall electability.

Trump narrowly won the 2016 election and lost in 2020. Some in the party view his erratic performance as president a significant factor for poor Republican results in the 2018 midterms and, at best, mixed results in the 2022 midterms.

In addition, Trump’s name hasn’t been tested on the ballot since he encouraged supporters to refuse to accept the 2020 election result, which culminated with a deadly riot on the Capitol.

“Governing is not about entertaining. Governing is not about building a brand or talking on social media and virtue signalling,” DeSantis said at a recent Iowa event. “It’s ultimately about winning and producing results.”

DeSantis has been busy as governor. He signed measures that severely restricted abortions in Florida, made it easier for residents to carry concealed weapons, expanded a voucher program to allow students to attend private schools, and eliminated funding for diversity programs at public universities, among other moves.

He also remains in a pitched battle with the Walt Disney Co. over its criticism of laws prohibiting the teaching of gender identity concepts in public schools.

While some liberals see those moves as the use of state power to punish opponents or opposing views, such criticisms aren’t likely to emerge in a primary contest for a Republican Party that some political scientists say has moved much further to the right than conservative parties in Canada, the U.K. and Europe.