ROCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Donald Trump put aside months of criticism and mockery of Ron DeSantis on Sunday evening, celebrating his onetime Republican rival as his latest supporter after the Florida governor ended his presidential campaign and endorsed the previous president.
For Trump, it is develop into a well-recognized ritual to welcome the backing of somebody who as soon as tried to take him on. Nonetheless, it was notable at Sunday’s rally in New Hampshire to see Trump reward DeSantis with out calling him “DeSantimonious” or “DeSanctus,” placing an finish to maybe probably the most bitter rivalry of Republicans’ 2024 marketing campaign.
“I simply wish to thank Ron and congratulate him on doing an excellent job,” Trump mentioned on the outset of his remarks. “He was very gracious, and he endorsed me. I respect that, and I additionally look ahead to working with Ron.” Trump described DeSantis as “a very terrific individual.”
Earlier within the day, DeSantis mentioned by way of video that he could be ending his marketing campaign two days earlier than New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation GOP major. However, Trump’s glee Sunday evening apart, it wasn’t the warmest of endorsements.
“It’s clear to me {that a} majority of Republican major voters wish to give Donald Trump one other likelihood,” DeSantis mentioned, providing matter-of-fact evaluation by means of a pressured smile with out including plaudits for Trump.
“I signed a pledge to help the Republican nominee, and I’ll honor that pledge,” he continued, earlier than including a dig on the remaining contender, Nikki Haley. DeSantis described the previous U.N. ambassador and onetime South Carolina governor as a stand-in for “the previous Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged type of warmed-over corporatism.”
Trump appeared unbothered by DeSantis’ method, placing a tone of camaraderie as fellow political combatants. “I’ll inform you it isn’t simple,” Trump mentioned Sunday evening in Rochester. “They assume it is simple doing these items, proper? It isn’t simple.”
Brenda Moneypenny, a 64-year-old from Alton, waited within the chilly for 2 hours to see Trump on Sunday evening. She whipped out her driver’s license to show her final title and defined she is a registered unbiased who usually votes Republican. Moneypenny mentioned she has thought-about Haley, particularly due to the prospect to elect the primary girl to the presidency. However she by no means thought-about DeSantis.
“Too flim-flamsy,” Moneypenny mentioned of the governor. “He wants higher marketing campaign individuals. He doesn’t have anyone that’s doing him any favors proper now.”
In the end, she settled on Trump: “Tried and true,” she mentioned.
The previous president appeared to enjoy skewering DeSantis all through the marketing campaign, usually making clear it was a private grudge as a result of he thought-about the governor’s resolution to run within the first place an act of disloyalty. Trump endorsed DeSantis, then a congressman, in a aggressive 2018 GOP major for Florida governor. DeSantis went on to win the nomination and the final election. By the point DeSantis received a landslide reelection 4 years later, although, he was positioning himself for his personal White Home marketing campaign.
As just lately as November, Trump got here to Florida and addressed a boisterous crowd at a state GOP assembly standing in entrance of an indication that learn: “Florida is Trump Nation.” That night, Trump didn’t point out DeSantis till greater than half-hour into his speech. Even then, it was to brag about polls displaying his benefits over the governor.
“I endorsed him, and he grew to become a rocket ship in 24 hours,” Trump mentioned, claiming that DeSantis had begged for his endorsement. “Now he’s like a wounded falling chicken from the sky.”
Trump by no means did debate DeSantis or another 2024 rival. He has mentioned he would not till one proves they’re a reliable menace to him successful the nomination.
DeSantis concentrated his marketing campaign in current months in Iowa, the place he completed in second place in final week’s caucuses — 30 proportion factors behind Trump and barely forward of Haley. Haley, in the meantime, has lengthy prioritized New Hampshire as a possible springboard forward of her home-state South Carolina major subsequent month.
In Iowa, APVoteCast surveys of caucusgoers instructed DeSantis’s supporters had been more likely than Haley’s to contemplate themselves conservatives who would again Trump it doesn’t matter what if he wins the nomination and faces President Joe Biden in November. If that pattern holds in New Hampshire, then Trump may anticipate at the least some enhance from DeSantis dropping out, and no matter he will get may stretch out his margin and frustrate Haley’s potential to assert any momentum. Certainly, Trump’s aides have mentioned they anticipate DeSantis’ help across the nation will shift closely to Trump.
Trump famous Sunday that he received New Hampshire’s 2016 major by about 20 factors. He misplaced the battleground state twice on the whole elections.
On Monday, he plans to be in New York at a civil defamation trial stemming from a columnist’s claims he sexually attacked her. Then he’s scheduled to return to New Hampshire for a night rally in Laconia.
___ Barrow reported from Atlanta.
