Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to announce his 2024 presidential bid on Wednesday night in a Twitter Space hosted by the CEO of the social media platform, Elon Musk.
A spokesperson for the governor’s office confirmed to CNN on Wednesday that DeSantis would be announcing a campaign for the Republican presidential primary, where he will square off against other candidates including former President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
A planned announcement by DeSantis comes as he has continued to face criticism from Trump who has used several nicknames for the Florida governor including “Rob DeSanctimonious,” and “Ron DeSanctus,” in recent posts to his Truth Social account.
A 2024 Republican presidential primary tracking poll conducted by Morning Consult shows that Trump leads all GOP candidates at 58 percent. DeSantis is in second place with 20 percent support and he is trailed by former Vice President Mike Pence who scored 6 percent.
LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP; KIMIMASA MAYAMA/AFP via Getty Images
USA Today reported that the announcement will be made in a Twitter Space beginning at 6 p.m. EST alongside Musk and will be moderated by entrepreneur and investor David Sacks. “Spaces is a way to have live audio conversations on Twitter. Anyone can join, listen, and speak in a Space on Twitter for iOS and Android. Currently, you can listen in a Space on web,” according to the platform.
Anyone with a Twitter account will be able to join the session once it begins and listen to the announcement by DeSantis and his conversation with Musk.
Speaking at an event hosted by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Musk mentioned his planned discussion with DeSantis and said, “I will be interviewing Ron DeSantis, and he has quite an announcement to make.”
“And it will be the first time that something like this is happening on social media and with real-time questions and answers, unscripted,” Musk said.
DeSantis’ wife, Casey, also posted a video to Twitter that alluded to a potential campaign announcement for the Florida governor. “America is worth the fight… Every. Single. Time,” Casey DeSantis wrote as a caption to the video.
The DeSantis War Room Twitter account also posted the video and changed its bio on the social media application to the date of the governor’s planned announcement.
Over the past several months, Trump has continued to take aim at DeSantis amid anticipation of the Florida governor’s potential run for president in 2024.
In November, Trump referred to DeSantis as “Ron DeSanctimonious.” The former president has often shared polls showing his lead in a hypothetical match-up on his Truth Social account.
“As I said – Ron is unelectable. I am up on Crooked Joe Biden by, at least, 7 and Ron DeSanctimonious is losing by 4. His “campaign” has been a total disaster!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post this week sharing a poll.
Political analyst John Ellis told Newsweek that DeSantis’ “approach to politics is: paint by numbers.”
“He has a much-inflated view of his own skills, appeal, etc. His grasp of big issues (the world in disarray, the future of technology, the future of science, wealth creation, productivity growth, financialization, education, social inequality, etc.) is tenuous, to say the least. And he seems to think it doesn’t matter. It matters a lot, especially to voters who are tired of Trump,” Ellis told Newsweek via email.
Newsweek reached out to DeSantis’s press office via email for comment.