Why Is DeSantis Announcing His Campaign in a Twitter Conversation With Elon Musk?

 What has felt probable, then likely, then inevitable, over the course of recent months is finally becoming a reality. According to multiple confirmed reports, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will officially launch his 2024 presidential bid later this evening. We’ll analyze his selected method and venue in a moment, but let’s first acknowledge that this isn’t a rumor. The leak is part of the rollout, confirmed by Team DeSantis’ social media accounts, starting within minutes of those reports emerging:
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05.24.2023 pic.twitter.com/CKdITktyev
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) May 23, 2023

Also on Tuesday afternoon, Casey DeSantis, the governor’s wife, tweeted a Fox News article about the looming announcement with the caption, “big if true.” Hours later, she posted this teaser video on social media. It concludes with the a message encouraging people to text the word ‘launch’ to a phone number:
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America is worth the fight... Every. Single. Time. pic.twitter.com/lWNQ3DIXgp
— Casey DeSantis (@CaseyDeSantis) May 23, 2023

The view count on that clip quickly raced into the millions. Other high-profile GOP candidates — from Donald Trump to Nikki Haley, to Tim Scott — have entered the race with major speeches to supportive crowds. DeSantis will eschew that format, initially sitting down with billionaire innovator and Twitter owner Elon Musk for a conversation hosted on Twitter’s platform about his decision:
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After months of buildup and speculation, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is officially entering the 2024 White House race. Sources familiar confirmed to Fox News that the popular conservative governor will declare that he's a candidate for president on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET during a conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter. Along with his announcement, DeSantis is expected to file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, which officially launches his GOP presidential campaign. His first national TV interview following the announcement will be with Fox News' Trey Gowdy Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on "Fox News Tonight."...The announcement by DeSantis coincides with his meeting this week in Miami with top financial backers. A formal campaign kickoff event will likely take place sometime after this week's gathering of top donors and bundlers, but no details have been shared by the campaign. The blockbuster move by the two-term Florida governor now turns the battle for the Republican nomination into an apparent two-person fistfight between DeSantis and Trump.

Musk previously indicated his support for a DeSantis White House bid, but has also praised some of the other options. It seems like the broader play is this unorthodox streamed discussion with a highly visible figure, followed by a primetime interview on Fox, followed days later by some sort of major rally. Whether he’ll hold it in Florida, or go straight to the trail in Iowa or New Hampshire, remains to be seen. Expect some highly-produced videos and other fundraising and list-building pushes from the campaign, along with a flurry of additional endorsements, beyond the shows of force among state legislators in the aforementioned states. One of those cascading endorsement reveals came just yesterday from a Georgia Congressman:
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Congressman @RepMcCormick (R-GA) — a former Marine, ER doctor & father of seven — endorsed DeSantis today. He explains why here (with follow-ups at the link), citing the need to win Georgia: https://t.co/TKPCDMB8zX pic.twitter.com/mI18kl5wBG
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 23, 2023

On the same show, I discussed DeSantis’ choice to first confirm his candidacy to Musk Twitter with Brit Hume, who offered his thoughts on the matter. I outlined my own reaction (for what it’s worth, I’d heard DeSantis’ announcement method would be non-traditional), surmising that the governor and his team elected to go this route for several reasons. First and foremost, it’s a base signal. Conservatives are livid with Big Tech, and Musk has been widely cheered as a pro-speech champion who took an influential platform away from the Left. Progressives, including much of the ‘news’ media, detest Musk, just as they despise the man who’s about to leap into the 2024 sweepstakes. It’s no coincidence that DeSantis sought out Musk, not just for the social media eyeballs he controls, but for what he represents, and who is loudest critics are.

Second, by announcing online, I’d imagine the DeSantis campaign will make it easy for grassroots supporters to offer small donations. Since you’re already here on the Internet, why not contribute? Campaigns often try to make a splash with small donors around their launch, as a metric to demonstrate grassroots interest and enthusiasm. It’s not a coincidence, for example, that the Biden campaign didn’t release those stats after the incumbent’s lackluster re-election plunge a few weeks ago. Some sources whispered to reporters that their number didn’t even hit Biden’s 2020 marks, amid a crowded Democratic field. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this slight dig at Trump wasn’t part of the calculation, too:
    
Scoop: GOP sources close to @GovRonDeSantis tell me the decision to announce his 2024 prez run on @Twitter was based on @elonmusk generating HUGE numbers (obviously) and to further diss Trump by contrasting it with his ailing Truth Social
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) May 23, 2023

Trump famously loved Twitter as a means of communication. He’s been reinstated by the Musk regime, but he’s limiting his rapid-style posting to his Truth Social site, which commands a tiny fraction of Twitter’s footprint. As of tonight, the 2024 Republican presidential primary really begins. Rumors of Trump’s demise after dramatic polling dips after January 6th and the GOP’s weak midterm performance were premature, short-sighted, and exaggerated. Assertions that the race is over and that Trump has already got it in the bag before DeSantis even got in and started campaigning (Team Trump has been fanatically trying to kill DeSantis’ candidacy before it started, having already spent more money attacking DeSantis than they did in the 2022 elections against Democrats) strike me as premature, short-sighted, and exaggerated. Some of it is wish-casting, in some cases, including among Trump loyalists and many in the mainstream media, who are temporarily allied against DeSantis.

It’s entirely possible that DeSantis will fizzle as a national candidate. He could fail to catch on, or recede further in the polling if voters don’t like what they see. But he starts the race with very robust favorables among Republicans and a lot of room to grow. He has a message, a record, and a plan. Whether he can execute it and incrementally, then significantly, gain on Trump remains to be seen. Other candidates in the race might catch fire along the way, with a few others likely to get in. But the real primary commences tonight, and at the starting gun — and until events and data suggest otherwise, it’s a two-man race.