Donald Trump believes he’d beat every candidate in the GOP field if he runs in 2024, including conservative favorite and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance, scheduled to be released Monday, Trump made the bold but expected boasts regarding the next presidential election.
“I don’t think I will face him,” he said of DeSantis. “I think most people would drop out, I think he would drop out.”
The former President went on to say that anybody who decides to stay in the primaries – including DeSantis – would all meet the same fate.
“If I faced him, I’d beat him like I would beat everyone else,” he bragged.
EXCLUSIVE: Trump on a 2024 GOP primary vs. Ron DeSantis: ‘I’d beat him like I would beat everyone else’ via @benwerschkul https://t.co/VwgoJnzIZt pic.twitter.com/CAZK6mKLP9
— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) October 3, 2021
DeSantis Vs. Trump in 2024
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who faces a difficult reelection bid in the Sunshine State, has insisted any speculation of he and Trump battling in 2024 is “nonsense.”
He is currently focusing all efforts on his current position.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff going on in Florida,” said DeSantis. “I’m going to be running for reelection next year and we’re also working on a lot of things in the state beyond just the governor’s race.”
Still, he was keynoting a fundraiser in western New York last week, and on Sunday, hit Governor Pete Ricketts’ 5th annual Nebraska Steak-Fry along with former Vice President Mike Pence and Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.
Trump, meanwhile, is igniting his own mumblings about another 2024 run, hitting the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines next weekend.
Trump views the rally in Iowa as “critical to our efforts to take back our Republican Majority in 2022, and then the White House in 2024.”
Poll: Iowans strongly disapprove of Joe Biden weeks before Trump will hold Iowa rally ?⬇https://t.co/jG8swk87fZ
— RSBN ?? (@RSBNetwork) September 27, 2021
RELATED: Trump: ‘Sure I Would’ Consider Making DeSantis His Running Mate Over Pence
It’s Trump’s Nomination To Win
There is little doubt that President Trump is right about his prediction, braggadocious or not.
In every poll out there, he is the overwhelming favorite to earn the GOP nomination in 2024. DeSantis is the frontrunner only if Trump is taken out of the equation.
A straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) had Trump defeating his closest challenger with 70% of the vote.
And a senior aide to the former President, Jason Miller, says there is a “somewhere between 99 and 100 percent” chance that Trump is running again in 2024.
#BREAKING: Former President Trump wins the #CPAC straw poll for 2024 GOP presidential nominee, with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) winning the straw poll for a race in which Trump doesn’t run. pic.twitter.com/u6mI1H8IG2
— Forbes (@Forbes) July 11, 2021
DeSantis topped the CPAC straw poll on a separate question when asked who should earn the Republican nomination if Trump doesn’t run – getting 68 percent.
The former President was asked this past summer if he’d consider putting DeSantis on the ticket with him in 2024.
“Sure I would,” Trump replied.
“But, you know, there are numerous people that are great,” he added. “I would certainly consider Ron.”
The duo is so far and above the favorites in the GOP right now that it makes that pairing nearly a no-brainer.
Will Trump be able to handle having a running mate as popular as DeSantis – due in part because of their similarities – on the same ticket?
