(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Never-Trump Republicans revealed that they would attempt to convince Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va., to join the 2024 presidential race because Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., is not as popular as he used to be before he joined the race.
DeSantis, who once was the closest challenger to Donald Trump, very quickly fell behind Trump by as many as 50 points, even though he polled just 15 points behind him in February of this year, according to Breitbart. Some polls even indicated that Vivek Ramaswamy replaced him in the second place, putting him in third.
“DeSantis has faltered and failed to meet expectations and donors know it. No one has a real opening right now, but people are trying to figure out what to do,” former Ronald Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins said.
Due to his undesirable performance, DeSantis’s donors started questioning whether he would be able to win the 2024 election and suggesting that he should hold off his presidential ambitions until 2028.
As a result, the prominent anti-Trump donors started looking at Youngkin as a potential alternative to Trump. The donors would use a two-day “Red Vest Retreat” event that will happen next month as “an opportunity for them to try to push, if not shove, Youngkin into the Republican presidential race,” CBS News’s Robert Costa said.
“… maybe we can talk him into it. He obviously wants to see what emerges, what the state of play is,” a billionaire Youngkin donor Thomas Peterffy said.
Among the non-donors who encouraged Youngkin to enter the race was a former Trump administration attorney general Bill Barr who eventually turned against Trump.
“I’m for whoever can beat Trump in the primary and, while I still think some of the current candidates can do this, I’d welcome Youngkin putting his oar in. If the governor indicated he’d do it, I believe he would draw serious support and be a strong candidate,” Barr said.
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who used to back DeSantis, also encouraged Youngkin to join the GOP primary.
Among other Trump-hating people was also Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton.
“The search for other people is very real,” he said.
