MANCHESTER, N.H. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, once seen as the most formidable opponent to Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary, suspended his campaign Sunday and endorsed the former president.
The move comes two days before the New Hampshire primary.
DeSantis made the announcement in a video on X — the same social media platform where he did the glitchy rollout of his White House bid.
“Now, following our second-place finish in Iowa, we’ve prayed and deliberated on the way forward,” he said. “If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it. But I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources. We don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.”
“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” he said, adding: “He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”
Haley reacted to the news from the campaign trail in New Hampshire: “I want to say to Ron he ran a great race. He’s been a good governor, and we wish him well. Having said that, it’s now one fella and one lady left.”
Since DeSantis came in second in Iowa on Monday, his campaign has sent mixed signals to voters, donors and lower-level aides, creating confusion about his intentions for the rest of the campaign.
He went directly to South Carolina from Iowa, a move apparently designed to bolster his insistence that he would stay in the race at least until that state’s late-February primary.
But then he bounced back and forth between South Carolina and New Hampshire, scheduling events in the Granite State with little warning for supporters and undecided voters who wanted to see him before Tuesday’s primary. He also quietly returned to Florida on Thursday with no public explanation.
He canceled appearances on Sunday-morning television programs — including NBC’s “Meet the Press” — late Saturday. The campaign also told surrogates to stand down from planned television appearances Sunday, according to one of the surrogates.
By Sunday morning, advisers and donors said they did not know whether he would drop out — but had begun speculating that he would. A source familiar with DeSantis’ campaign said he made the decision to exit the race Sunday afternoon.
DeSantis’ decision came as a sudden surprise to allies at Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC that cannot coordinate with the governor’s campaign. One official with the PAC was New Hampshire-bound for more DeSantis events as the news broke. “Do you think I’d be going there if I thought otherwise?” the official said when asked if they had heard rumblings of a DeSantis dropout.
Trump and his allies began dropping hints that a DeSantis withdrawal was imminent Saturday night, with Trump saying as much at a rally in Manchester.
“We might get Ron DeSantis back onside pretty soon,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a Trump backer who was close to the governor before the 2024 campaign began, said Sunday.
The campaign against Trump
DeSantis sought to position himself as an alternative to Trump, trying to cast himself as a politically successful heir to the MAGA movement and its preferred policies without Trump’s baggage. But in his bid to court Trump’s supporters, DeSantis was slow to meaningfully criticize the former president and was unable to peel away enough of his support. DeSantis’ embrace of hard-right policies also led moderate Republicans and independents to look elsewhere in their search for a candidate to steer the GOP in a different direction from Trump.
DeSantis entered the Republican presidential race with an impressive political operation and widespread popularity in the party after achieving a blowout 2022 re-election win in Florida, which had for decades been one of the most tightly divided states in the nation.
But the momentum DeSantis had at the start dissipated amid relentless attacks from the Trump machine as well as his own missteps. The pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. spent over $10 million attacking DeSantis before he even announced his candidacy for president, according to campaign finance records.
The early ad campaign slashed at the Florida governor with TV spots criticizing votes he took in Congress on Social Security, Medicare and taxes, and it didn’t let up. MAGA Inc. spent more than $23 million on anti-DeSantis advertising, campaign finance records show — and the super PAC backing former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley spent even more hitting DeSantis as they began clashing in Iowa in the fall.
When DeSantis officially launched his White House bid in May, a glitchy Twitter Spaces event with Elon Musk became emblematic of a campaign that was often overshadowed by infighting, financial troubles, and a complicated partnership with the super PAC Never Back Down.
At the core of DeSantis’ campaign message was a pitch to bring his Florida blueprint to the nation. The governor pledged to dismantle the federal government’s “administrative state,” finish the southern border wall, and limit Chinese influence in the United States and abroad.
The firebrand conservative issues that became fixtures of his administration in Florida found their way to the campaign, too. He weaved his signature war on “woke” through several policy proposals, including ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, barring transgender service members from the military, and banning gender-affirming medical care for minors.
As one of the only sitting executives in the race, DeSantis at times flexed the power of his office in Tallahassee in step with his campaign rhetoric. After the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, DeSantis mobilized the Florida Department of Emergency Management to organize evacuation flights as the war raged, with those efforts extracting nearly 700 American citizens from the Middle East.
Even before launching his White House bid, DeSantis sent Florida law enforcement and National Guard members to the southern border to support the efforts of Texas officials there. (The state’s governor, Greg Abbott, ultimately endorsed Trump.)
Trump always posed a difficult obstacle for the governor to overcome, particularly at the start of his bid. The two candidates’ trajectories had been entwined for years — Trump had elevated DeSantis’ career with an endorsement that helped rocket the then-congressman to the Republican nomination for governor in Florida in 2018. Yet DeSantis’ presidential aspirations hinged on the prospect of a party ready to ditch their firebrand populist leader.
While Trump’s candidacy was often overshadowed by his legal woes and baggage from his term in office, DeSantis often declined to criticize the front-runner in the early months of his campaign as he sought to win over his voters. In rarer moments, DeSantis generated headlines with comments about Trump’s lackluster response during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol or the political failures of his election denialism.
By the end of his run, DeSantis was regularly attacking Trump in his stump speech, chiding the former president for not following through on 2016 campaign promises like building a border wall, for refusing to join primary debates, and for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Criticisms notwithstanding, DeSantis said that as president, he would pardon Trump if he were convicted on any of the federal charges he faces.
Meanwhile, the messages of the campaign were often eclipsed by internal personnel and financial struggles on the DeSantis team.
Barely two months into DeSantis’ run, the governor’s campaign ran into financial trouble and fired roughly a dozen midlevel staffers as a cost-cutting measure — and then dismissed nearly two dozen more a week later. Not long after, the governor replaced campaign manager Generra Peck with a longtime loyalist, governor’s office chief of staff James Uthmeier. As financial troubles roiled the campaign, DeSantis leaned heavily on Never Back Down’s support, letting the PAC fund most of the television advertisements and events.
The super PAC also suffered its fair share of internal drama.
Ahead of the first presidential nominating contest in Iowa, the DeSantis campaign, with help from the PAC, built a formidable ground operation in the Hawkeye State, devoting significant time and effort there. The governor visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties, super PAC staff knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors, and the governor scored endorsements from Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and the influential evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats.
In the closing weeks of his campaign, DeSantis not only worked to close the polling gap between himself and the former president, but spent significant time and money to stave off a surging Haley in Iowa. He accused Haley of lacking proper conservative credentials, seizing on missteps like misnaming a University of Iowa basketball star and for saying that the New Hampshire primary serves as a correction to the results of Iowa’s caucuses.
But the traditional Iowa playbook — one that worked for past caucus winners like Ted Cruz — did not prove effective enough against Trump’s pseudo-incumbency and immovable support inside the Republican electorate. DeSantis finished well behind Trump and only barely managed to block Haley from the runner-up spot.
After celebrating a second-place finish as a victory, DeSantis opted to first visit South Carolina instead of making the traditional overnight trip for presidential candidates from Des Moines, Iowa, to Manchester, New Hampshire. The move, DeSantis and his allies hoped, would signal the governor’s campaign was built for the long haul, including into the Super Tuesday elections in March.
Those hopes did not come to fruition.
DeSantis has three years remaining in his second and final term as the governor of Florida.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
