DeSantis Rejects Idea Of Being Trump’s VP If Trump Wins Primary

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said this week that he is not interested in running as vice president on a presidential ticket with former President Donald Trump – if Trump were to win the 2024 Republican Party nomination.

DeSantis made the remarks on Tuesday during an appearance on the “Wisconsin Right Now” podcast when asked about the idea.

“I’m not a No. 2 guy,” DeSantis said during a podcast this week. “I think I’m a leader. Governor of Florida, I’ve been able to accomplish a lot. I think I probably could do more staying there than being V.P., which doesn’t really have any authority.”

The governor’s remarks come about a month and a half before the first Republican Party presidential debate is set to kick off.

So far, the top two leading candidates on the Republican side are Trump and DeSantis with former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) trailing in the single digits. There are several other candidates polling in the low single digits.

DeSantis has had to address narratives from the media and opposing campaigns in recent days that his campaign is struggling, even though the Real Clear Politics average — which combines all the top polls into one poll — shows that the polls are pretty much the same now as they were when DeSantis announced, with DeSantis being a little over a point closer to Trump now than he was before in national polls.

The last time there has been any significant movement in the polls came when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted the former president in late March, which rallied many Republican voters behind him.

It’s a good indication of how much media is driven by desire for narratives and action that the coverage is so disconnected from the actual progression of the primary race. The race hasn’t budged at all, for almost anyone, since May. pic.twitter.com/G1GRzmQFZJ

— AG (@AGHamilton29) July 12, 2023

DeSantis dismissed the criticisms as media “narratives” during an interview at the start of the week, noting that his campaign and the Super PAC that is supporting him “just announced last week better fundraising than any non-incumbent has ever had if you look at what was reported, it was about $150 million, and that hasn’t even been deployed yet.”

“We’ve got a long way to go,” he said. “I’m looking forward to being able to participate in the debates, but this is not something that, you know, I ever expected to just snap fingers and all of a sudden, you know, you win seven months before anything happens. You’ve got to work, and it requires a lot of toil and tears and sweat, and we’re going to do that.”