Steve Cortes, a former senior adviser to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, announced on Tuesday that he is backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the 2024 presidential race.
Cortes’ decision to back the Florida governor comes as several former senior Trump campaign and administration officials have switched teams ahead of DeSantis’ expected campaign, including Matt Wolking, Erin Perrine, and Ken Cuccinelli.
Cortes made the announcement during an interview on Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.” with Stuart Varney.
“I am backing Governor Ron DeSantis for president and just joined his PAC, his aligned PAC, Never Back Down,” Cortes said. “When I look at the situation now and going forward, I believe the best option to both win the general election and to govern effectively, to implement a conservative agenda in office, I believe the best option is Ron DeSantis.”
“And let me tell you one other important reason I’m backing Ron DeSantis is that the idea of a rematch, of a rematch of Biden versus Trump, is something this country overwhelmingly does not want,” he added. “It is a movie that we have already seen. Nobody liked it. And we know the ending. To give you some of the numbers on that, NBC News polling shows that 70 percent of Americans do not want Biden to run again.”
Cortes noted that while Trump is currently up in the national GOP primary polls, it is still early and “a lot can change.” He noted the GOP has been on a national losing streak since 2018, losing control of the Senate, Trump’s 2020 White House bid, and underperforming in the 2022 midterms. But he said DeSantis had bucked the trend, winning re-election last year by nearly 20 percentage points.
“It was Ron DeSantis who took what was a swing state and he turned it into a plus-20-point smashing landslide, and he did it largely by winning over constituencies the Republicans have had trouble with previously,” Cortes said. “For example, Miami-Dade County. He won it by 10 percent. A very urban, very diverse county, a show that he can appeal to independents, to swing voters, to suburban voters. If – that is the case for Ron DeSantis.”
WATCH:
Former Senior Trump Campaign adviser Steve Cortes: “I am backing Governor Ron DeSantis for president and just joined his PAC, his aligned PAC, Never Back Down. … I believe the best option to both win the general election and to govern effectively, to implement a conservative… pic.twitter.com/LSXwHm8RG0
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 10, 2023