JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his presidential campaign in a video and press release Wednesday, but his effort to jump into the race live on Twitter stalled when the platform’s server crashed.
Mr. DeSantis rolled out his bid in a pre-recorded video pledging a “great American comeback” and promising to “right the ship” sinking under President Biden.
“Our border is a disaster. Crime infests our cities. The federal government makes it harder for families to make ends meet. And the president flounders,” Mr. DeSantis says in the video. “But decline is a choice. Success is attainable. And freedom is worth fighting for.”
Mr. DeSantis was scheduled to speak about his candidacy live on Twitter Spaces alongside Twitter owner Elon Musk but the platform repeatedly crashed after more than half a million users logged on.
“We’ve got so many people in here that I think we are kind of melting the servers,” said Twitter Spaces co-host David Sacks.
The Twitter event cut in and out. Mr. Musk could be heard calling the crash “really unfortunate.”
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The live event eventually got underway with a few more technical glitches and included an hour-long question-and-answer session with the governor on a variety of topics, such as accusations of book banning, his support of bitcoin and his opposition to a Central Bank Digital Currency.
Mr. DeSantis also lined up appearances later Wednesday on Fox News and on the conservative talk-radio host Mark Levin’s show.
He enters a GOP field that includes former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, as well as the undisputed front-runner, former President Donald Trump.
One of the youngest candidates in the race, Mr. DeSantis, 44, jumps in as the most formidable opponent to Mr. Trump, 76. The former president has been lashing out at his one-time protege in a bid to undercut Mr. DeSantis’ nascent candidacy.
Mr. Trump responded to the DeSantis announcement with his own video that said Mr. DeSantis was trying to imitate Mr. Trump.
A spokeswoman for Make America Great Again Inc., a Trump-aligned super PAC, mocked Mr. DeSantis’ Twitter glitch as a “failure to launch” and said it served as “another example of why he is just not ready for the job” compared to Mr. Trump.
She described Mr. Trump as “the proven leader that will be ready on day one to turn the country around.” As president, Mr. Trump cut taxes and filled Supreme Court vacancies with conservative justices.
Mr. DeSantis, a favorite among GOP megadonors, starts the race with a war chest of more than $110 million, compared to about $85 million banked by the Trump campaign. He planned to meet with donors in Miami after his campaign kickoff.
Mr. DeSantis trails Mr. Trump by about 37 points nationally. However, the race is deemed to be tighter in critical early states, which means Mr. DeSantis could threaten Mr. Trump’s path to the nomination.
The DeSantis team has already saturated Iowa, where pro-life Christian voters traditionally dominate the caucuses and offer the Florida governor a chance to throw Mr. Trump off the top of the candidate heap. Mr. DeSantis is running to the right of Mr. Trump on abortion, a critical issue among Iowa GOP Caucus voters. Mr. DeSantis signed a law recently banning abortion in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, which Mr. Trump called “too harsh.”
Mr. Trump, who lost Iowa in 2016 to conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, put out a statement Wednesday touting his Hawkeye State endorsements and labeling Mr. DeSantis “a failure for Iowa and Farmers,” and calling him “a swamp creature,” backed by Wall Street donors.
He bashed Mr. DeSantis for voting while a House lawmaker to eliminate the renewable fuel standard, which mandates blending the nation’s fuel with ethanol produced by Iowa cornfields. The Trump campaign pointed out that Mr. DeSantis also opposed subsidies for farmers hurt by China’s trade retaliation after Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on China’s goods.
More than a half dozen Republicans have jumped into the race. However, only Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have earned more than low single digits among Republican voters so far.
The latest national polls show Mr. DeSantis with about 20% of the GOP vote, compared to more than 50% for Mr. Trump.
In his campaign video announcement, Mr. DeSantis touted his Florida record of rejecting COVID-19 vaccines and mandates, boosting law enforcement and ending “woke” educational policies in public schools.
“We held the line when freedom hung in the balance,” Mr. DeSantis says in the video.
The Twitter event included questions from Mr. Musk and co-hosts that gave Mr. DeSantis a chance to outline how he’d govern as president. Chief among his goals, he said, would be reining in federal agencies and their onslaught of new regulations.
“These agencies are totally out of control. There’s no accountability and we are going to bring that in a very big way,” Mr. DeSantis said.
He also shot back at reports that his policies aimed at eliminating sexually explicit literature from public schools amounted to a book ban.
“The whole book ban thing is a hoax,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I played the video that had images of the books, and the local news cut the feed. If it’s too graphic for the news, how is it OK for a fifth- or sixth-grader?”
Mr. DeSantis remained on Twitter answering questions for more than an hour, after an initial half-hour delay. More than 700,000 people had logged on to the event before it crashed and about 300,000 remained for the actual interview.
Despite the glitchy launch, Team DeSantis declared it a resounding success and said it helped raise $1 million in online donations in just an hour.
“There was so much enthusiasm for Gov. DeSantis’ vision for our Great American Comeback that he literally busted up the internet. Washington is next,” spokesman Bryan Griffin said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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