Florida Governor Ron DeSantis faced a disastrous start to his 2024 presidential campaign as technical glitches marred his live Twitter announcement of his candidacy.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s long-awaited entry into the 2024 presidential campaign descended into a disaster on Wednesday, as the opening of the live Twitter event intended to announce his candidacy was derailed by glitches.
The conversation repeatedly crashed as the platform’s servers were overwhelmed, and many of the 400,000-plus users hoping to listen in missed the 44-year-old conservative throwing down the gauntlet to Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump.
DeSantis finally began speaking after almost half an hour of confusion and chaos—although what should have been an exultant launch had been thoroughly overshadowed by the time he was able to make his case for the Republican nomination.
“I am running for President of the United States to lead our great American comeback,” he told the listeners, although tens of thousands had abandoned Twitter by then.
As the website struggled to get the event back on track, its owner Elon Musk, performing hosting duties, could be heard noting the “massive number of people online” who had caused the servers to begin “straining somewhat.”
While organizers sought to highlight the event’s popularity —the DeSantis camp said it had raised $1 million online in one hour—Biden’s team quickly capitalized on the glitches, tweeting a link to a fundraising page and stating: “This link works.”
Trump joked on his Truth Social platform that “My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working”—an oblique reference to a war of words he once had with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
Long viewed as the most formidable challenger to twice-impeached Trump, DeSantis boasts deep Midwestern roots, a large campaign fund, a list of ultra-conservative legislative wins and an unblemished record of election victories.
While Trump has dominated headlines with his legal woes, DeSantis has presented himself as the tip of the spear in the struggle of ordinary Americans against progressive values he sees as authoritarian and divisive.
The governor gave a more traditional interview—minus the setbacks—on conservative TV network Fox News after the Twitter event, and tried to reclaim his reputation for order and competence.
DeSantis has used his position as Florida’s chief executive to stack up a litany of conservative accomplishments, signing off on some 80 state laws targeting “woke indoctrination” in schools and other public institutions.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
