VINTON, Iowa (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is increasingly urging Republicans to avoid the temptation to refight the 2020 election next year…
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is increasingly urging Republicans to avoid the temptation to refight the 2020 election next year, even as former President Donald Trump remains the dominant favorite for the 2024 GOP nomination on a message of vindicating his defeat.
Though DeSantis recently cast doubt on the false theories about the 2020 election at the heart of Trump’s federal indictment, DeSantis is saying in early-voting states that any focus except on defeating Democratic President Joe Biden would be dire for his party.
“If that is the choice, we are going to win and we are going to win across the country,” DeSantis told reporters Saturday after a campaign stop in northern Iowa. “If the election is a referendum on other things that are not forward-looking, then I’m afraid Republicans will lose.”
DeSantis was on the second of a two-day trip across Iowa, pressing his recent record in Florida of conservative education, abortion and gender policy, and an equally GOP crowd-pleasing agenda for the nation.
He ignited applause at a Saturday morning event in Cedar Falls promoting a balanced budget amendment, term limits for Congress and promising his audience of about 100 that he would declare a national emergency and dispatch the military to the U.
