According to reports on Thursday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to enter the 2024 Republican presidential race the following week after the state’s legislative session concludes. A new report sheds light on who he desires as his running mate.
Before making a formal proclamation of his 2024 presidential bid, DeSantis is “determined to recruit Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders as his running mate,” sources close to his campaign exclusively told RadarOnline.com.
The news source added that “insiders claim” DeSantis decided to challenge former President Donald Trump’s press secretary after she became the first female governor of a red state in 2022, succeeding Asa Hutchison, who has also entered the 2024 GOP primaries.
“He really only has one strong choice: Sarah,” the source told the outlet. “He is desperate to lock up his running mate before he makes his formal announcement. He would announce his VP candidate very soon afterward.”
“He thinks it will be a one-two punch, and Republicans will be hard-pressed to look past a united front, especially if it is him and Sarah,” the insider noted further.
The RadarOnline report follows a previous Thursday story in which DeSantis was said to have taken another action that strongly supports the notion that he is preparing to announce his presidential candidacy.
DeSantis reportedly planning to announce next week he’s running for president and is considering Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders to be his VP in 2024.
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“DeSantis severed his connection to his long-standing state political committee and the tens of millions of dollars that it now controls, a step he needs to take ahead of a presidential campaign,” the outlet noted, adding: “The Republican governor is expected to jump into the race for president soon and the move to rebrand his Florida political committee — called Friends of Ron DeSantis — is the most concrete sign so far that his candidacy is imminent.”
DeSantis has stated for months that he will not decide whether to run for president until the conclusion of the Florida legislative session, which is rapidly approaching.
DeSantis filed a notice with the state on Friday indicating that he has severed ties with the political committee. The notice stated that he is no longer involved with direct or indirect fund-raising for the organization.
Notably, the committee’s website was amended Tuesday morning to reflect its new mission: “committed to advancing the Freedom Agenda and keeping Florida free.” The website also clarified that State Senator Blaise Ingoglia now represents the committee, replacing DeSantis.
“Ingoglia is a Republican ally of DeSantis who sponsored several of the governor’s key legislative priorities during the recently concluded legislative session, including a crackdown on illegal immigration that includes $12 million for the governor’s controversial migrant relocation program,” the outlet said.
“DeSantis first set up his committee back in 2018 and he used it to raise a record amount of money for his re-election campaign last year as he pulled in donations from many major Republican donors. Current campaign finance records show that the committee has nearly $86 million in the bank,” Politico added.
More on this story via Conservative Brief:
DeSantis, if he does jump in the race, will find himself ahead of the rest of the declared GOP candidates but still well behind Trump, the party’s frontrunner, according to multiple recent polls. CONTINUE READING…
