Did Ron DeSantis Abruptly Cancel Hometown Campaign Event? What We Know

The Ron DeSantis campaign is denying that a campaign launch rally in the Florida governor’s hometown of Dunedin was canceled in favor of an official 2024 announcement made with Elon Musk on his Twitter platform.

DeSantis is finally entering the GOP fray starting Wednesday evening, as he is scheduled to participate in a Twitter Spaces conversation with Musk. He has a large war chest and joins a candidate poll that includes Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy. Others that may enter include Mike Pence and Chris Christie.

The governor is widely viewed as Trump’s strongest opponent ahead of the Republican primaries, though he pales in comparison to the former president in terms of popularity, according to numerous polls. Trump has verbally attacked DeSantis almost relentlessly for weeks now, continuing with new attacks overnight that included calling him “disloyal” and taking credit for his 2018 gubernatorial victory.

Multiple sources, both local and national, have speculated that a rally was initially planned to take place in DeSantis’ hometown.

The news station Local 10 (WPLG) in Miami, an affiliate of ABC, reported May 18 that the Jacksonville-born governor who spent a large portion of his childhood in Dunedin—located on Florida’s Gulf Coast—was “likely” to launch his campaign with a rally.

The event was rumored to have been scheduled to occur at a minor league baseball stadium in the suburban town north of Tampa on either Thursday or early next week, according to the New York Daily News.

CNN’s Steve Contorno reported today that DeSantis’ political team had previously planned to make his first public appearance on Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, as a way of harkening back to his childhood and popularity as a Little League star—adding that the event was nixed due to the Twitter arrangement.

DeSantis’ press secretary Bryan Griffin, who has moved from the same position in the governor’s office to the campaign, tweeted that Contorno’s “anonymous sources” provided false information.

“There was never an in-person launch planned,” Griffin tweeted in reference to the CNN report. “If you want accurate updates, make sure they’re coming from us.

“I know the MSM hates it, but they can participate by tuning into tonight’s Spaces just like everyone else.”

David Abrams, an adviser during DeSantis’ gubernatorial reelection campaign, tweeted that the report about Dunedin is “not true, never was.”

“@CNN just sour their BS sources led them astray yet again…” he wrote.

CBS News’ Aaron Navarro also tweeted about the allegedly scrapped rally, citing unnamed sources. He later tweeted an “update/correction” referencing Griffin’s denial of the event ever being planned.

Newsweek reached out to the DeSantis campaign via email for comment.