Former President Donald Trump will be in Florida to support Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, at a Sunday night rally, but Gov. Ron DeSantis will not be there.
DeSantis did not receive an invite to the rally and nor did he ask for one, according to Politico. The popular Republican governor will instead be touring three separate cities throughout Sunday, hundreds of miles from Trump's rally in Miami. Trump and DeSantis are widely seen as the top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, though DeSantis has not indicated he intends to run.
Representatives for DeSantis' campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding the governor's absence from Sunday's rally.
Trump fired an opening salvo against DeSantis on Saturday night, dubbing him "Ron DeSanctimonious" at a rally in Pennsylvania. Many pro-Trump conservatives turned on the former president following the criticism, however, saying DeSantis is among the most successful and popular Republicans in the country.
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"DeSantis is an extremely effective conservative governor who has had real policy wins and real cultural wins. Trump isn’t going to be able to take this one down with a dumb nickname. He better have more than that up his sleeve," wrote Matt Walsh, a commentator at The Daily Wire and a leading voice among social conservatives.
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"Also, nice job launching your public attack against the most popular conservative governor in America three days before the midterms when we’re all supposed to be showing a united front," he added.
"What an idiot," wrote Rod Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative. "DeSantis is a far more effective leader of the Right than Trump was, if, that is, you expect a leader to get a lot done, rather than just talking about it and owning the libs."
Trump's Saturday comments came as he was discussing current polling for the 2024 primaries, which have shown Trump enjoying a huge lead.
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"We’re winning big in the Republican Party for the nomination like nobody’s ever seen before. There it is, Trump at 71 percent, Ron DeSanctimonious at 10%," Trump said. "Mike Pence at seven, oh, Mike is doing better than I thought. Liz Cheney there’s no way she’s at 4%. There’s no way. There’s no way. But we’re at 71 to 10 to 7 to 4."
