Nikki Haley released an official statement on Tuesday blasting Florida governor Ron DeSantis ahead of his widely anticipated entry into the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
The letter, written by Haley’s presidential campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, derided DeSantis as “Trump Without the Charm,” adding that the “glaring difference between the two is DeSantis’ inability to interact directly with voters.”
“Ron DeSantis claims to be that candidate. The DeSantis elevator pitch can be summed up as: ‘I’m like Trump without the drama,'” the letter, first obtained by Politico, states.
The note goes on to ask readers to “play a game” in which they are prompted to guess whether Trump or DeSantis is the culprit behind five allegedly compromising scenarios. Some of the questions are policy related — “Who passed a bill that hides his travel records from public disclosure?” — while others highlight personal attacks leveled by DeSantis critics — “Who was rejected for an endorsement by a member of the Florida congressional delegation because he wouldn’t return his calls?”
“You’d think these are headlines you might have seen during the Trump administration,” Ankney writes.
“Even fierce critics of Donald Trump have noticed that, compared to the Trump campaign, DeSantis is far more disorganized.”
Multiple reports suggest DeSantis is preparing to officially enter the 2024 race later this week, though no formal announcement has yet been made.
A RealClearPolitics average of national polls on Tuesday had Trump ahead in the race with 56.3 percent support. Meanwhile, the Florida governor remained a distant second with 19.4 percent support, marking a considerable decline since the beginning of April when he boasted 30.1 percent.
DeSantis racked up legislative wins in recent months, creating the largest school-choice program in the country, signing the so-called “Heartbeat Bill” banning abortion after six weeks, and cutting taxes by $2 billion.
On May 5, DeSantis teased the idea that “relatively soon” he would decide whether to enter the race. “I felt very confident going into November ’22 we were gonna do very well, but you really had to put up or shut up on that,” the Republican governor said of his massive 19-point reelection win on Election Day 2022.
“I also understood that we had this opportunity here to be able to really, really do a lot of great stuff, and I’ve always said that we’re gonna see this through,” DeSantis added. “What happens in the future? We’ll get on that relatively soon. You either gotta put or shut up on that as well.”
DeSantis would join a rapidly growing field of Republican contenders alongside Trump, Haley, Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.), tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. Other hopefuls weighing their options include former vice president Mike Pence and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.