Gov. Ron DeSantis may enter the 2024 presidential race as early as next week.
Several major news media outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Tampa Bay Times, reported Thursday that the Florida governor is expected to file paperwork declaring his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission next week.
The news outlets each cited unnamed individuals “familiar with the decision.”
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported about DeSantis’s plans, said DeSantis and his campaign team are preparing “a fundraising blitz” next week to coincide with the planned announcement.
The New York Times reported that DeSantis, speaking to donors and supporters in a telephone call on Thursday afternoon, said only three people “are credible in this whole thing.”
“Biden, Trump and me. And I think of those three, two have a chance to get elected president — Biden and me, based on all the data in the swing states, which is not great for the former president and probably insurmountable because people aren’t going to change their view of him,” the Times reported, noting that one of their reporters listened to the call.
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DeSantis has been hinting at a presidential run for months. Last weekend, he made his second visit to Iowa, one of the first states to hold a presidential caucus.
If he joins the Republican presidential primary, he joins a field that includes former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.
Trump is seeking the White House for a third time. He defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.
DeSantis is widely viewed among Republicans as an alternative to Trump.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that Democrat Biden’s reelection campaign is vowing to hold the states that won him the White House in 2020 but also compete in places it lost like North Carolina and Florida, providing what it says are “a number of viable pathways" to victory.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, in her first extensive comments on strategy since she got the job last month, wrote in a memo that the 2024 race presents “significant opportunities to grow Democratic support.”
Rodriguez said the reelection campaign is planning early investments to try to retain battleground states Biden won in 2020 including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Hampshire, and to hold Georgia and Arizona, which hadn't voted Democratic in a presidential race in decades prior to three years ago.
But the campaign will also “look to expand the map even further in states like North Carolina and Florida” and Rodriguez said both would be included in a “7-figure" advertising buy that encompassed investments in a string of swing states.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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