Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis should enter the 2024 presidential race in the near future.
McEnany commended former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley for entering the race early in order to catch the eyes of more Republican voters and raise her chances of earning the nomination. She argued the Florida governor would benefit by emulating Haley’s strategy of entering the race early rather than waiting for other candidates.
“Being the only person [Haley] against President Trump at this moment, she got a lot of media attention, we’ll be talking about this now and for days to come, versus the stream of others who will come in after her — likely Pompeo, Pence — all of the others as we await for potentially the biggest name to come in which is Ron DeSantis. I do think, when you look at Nikki Haley’s polling, she was at about 1%, now she’s at 3%, she was the hottest name in Republican politics in 2011 to 2015,” McEnany said.
“This is the case … polling at about 3%, for Governor Ron DeSantis to get in now. People say will he get in, will he wait — how can you wait when you are currently the hottest governor in Republican politics? Seeing how hard it is to regenerate that attention almost a decade later,” she concluded.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Republican voters’ choice for the nominee found former President Donald Trump, who announced his presidential candidacy in November, leading by 43% and DeSantis trailing in second with 31% of support. Haley only garnered 4% favorability. The poll surveyed 1,465 registered Republicans between Feb. 6 – 13 with a 3% margin of error. (RELATED: Nikki Haley Sets Date To Announce 2024 Presidential Bid)
Haley announced her candidacy Tuesday, the first to challenge Trump. Trump launched a series of attacks against his new challenger by accusing her of supporting former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, threatening Medicare and Social Security and for being “weak” on border security.
Trump has repeatedly attacked DeSantis after several polls found the governor leading him as the most favorable candidate in 2024. He has labeled DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimonious” and criticized him for closing down the Florida beaches at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.