Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are not yielding one inch in the 2024 GOP primary.
DeSantis is down in the polls and looking to shake up the race.
And now Ron DeSantis is about to stun Donald Trump with this nasty curve ball.
DeSantis’s team tried to set up the Florida governor to enter the GOP primary on an upswing.
The campaign-in-waiting scheduled two successful visits to Iowa and New Hampshire — home of the first two nominating contests — that received positive media coverage.
And DeSantis’s allies sought to present the image of an inevitable nominee by floating the idea of picking Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders as his vice-presidential running mate.
“He really only has one strong choice: Sarah,” a source close to DeSantis told RadarOnline.com. “He is desperate to lock up his running mate before he makes his formal announcement. He would announce his VP candidate very soon afterward.”
Huckabee Sanders served as Trump’s White House press secretary and romped to a landslide victory last November.
The DeSantis team believes picking Huckabee Sanders would serve as a permission slip for voters that support the Trump agenda but want a different nominee to vote for the Florida governor.
“He thinks it will be a one-two punch and Republicans will be hard-pressed to look past a united front, especially if it is him and Sarah,” the DeSantis ally continued.
Huckabee Sanders downplayed any talk of her being on the ticket in 2024 and said her main focus was on defeating Joe Biden.
“I love the President, have a great relationship with him. I know our country would be infinitely better off if he was in office right now instead of Joe Biden but right now my focus isn’t 2024,” Huckabee Sanders declared.
But the DeSantis campaign source said Huckabee Sanders — who is the youngest governor in the nation — thinks the future of the Republican Party is Ron DeSantis but does not want to make any moves toward endorsing DeSantis because of Trump’s current dominance in the polls.
RCP AVERAGE: Trump has the largest advantage over DeSantis ever.
• Trump — 56% (+36.1)
• DeSantis — 19.9%
• Pence — 5.9%
• Haley — 4.3%
• Ramaswamy — 3.5%
• T. Scott — 2%
• Hutchinson — 1.1%https://t.co/FWREXz3fi4 pic.twitter.com/M09R4WoiO6— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 18, 2023
Ron DeSantis needs to peel off some Trump supporters and unite the rest of the GOP if he hopes to defeat Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.
And his team thinks picking Sarah Huckabee Sanders as DeSantis’s running mate would serve as a cornerstone of that strategy.
