In the days leading up to the Iowa caucuses, top advisers to Ron DeSantis steeled themselves for a grim result. The polling that for months told them enough Republicans there were ready to move on from Donald Trump was now predicting that most of them wouldn’t, and they began to consider options for the Florida governor with his political future in mind.
They presented DeSantis with a range of potential outcomes and paths forward. In the event of a dominating performance by Trump, they pitched that DeSantis could bow out, endorse the former president, finish his second term as governor and rebuild his reputation with an eye toward 2028.
He rejected the idea outright, according to a source familiar with the exchange. That was the end of that conversation.
Or so they thought. On Sunday, less than a week after a crushing defeat in Iowa and days before New Hampshire voters are expected to deliver another one, DeSantis bowed out of the 2024 presidential race. In a scripted video statement from Florida, DeSantis endorsed Trump and looked ahead to finishing his second term as governor.
His exit marked a stunning fall for a Republican who for a time appeared singularly positioned to pull the party from Trump’s vice grip. DeSantis once seemed to have it all: money and momentum behind him, a compelling background, a generational argument and a success story to share. Some early polls actually showed him with a lead over Trump.
But what he didn’t have was room for error running up against a popular former president. And the DeSantis campaign made many of them, his advisers, allies and supporters have acknowledged to CNN in interviews.
“Every single thing that could have not gone as we had hoped or planned for went horribly wrong,” one close adviser said.
DeSantis has suggested the race would be different if Trump wasn’t facing…
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