Though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to formally declare his candidacy for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, he continues to act as though he is a candidate, as do his surrogates.
A pro-Desantis “super PAC dropped an advertisement targeting former President Donald Trump as a ‘gun-grabber’ amid the National Rifle Association leadership forum,” The Washington Examiner reported on Saturday.
Both Trump and DeSantis addressed the forum on Friday, the report said.
During the event, the political action committee Never Back Down released an ad and intended to distribute flyers with a similar message, criticizing the former president for aligning himself with liberals. The pro-DeSantis ad came after the GOP governor was the subject of an attack ad from MAGA Inc, which portrayed him as having “pudding fingers.”
“Trump promised NRA members he’d have their back,” the ad stated. “But when Second Amendment rights came under attack, Trump abandoned us and stood with liberal Democrats.”
WATCH:
https://youtu.be/E1msy12LrdE
The ad drew attention to Trump’s remarks following the 2018 Parkland School shooting that claimed 17 lives, during which he appeared to soften his stance on gun control. In addition, the ad highlighted Trump’s previous endorsement of red flag laws, raising the minimum age for purchasing assault weapons, and his suggestion of “taking the guns early.”
“Half of you are so afraid of the NRA,” Trump says in the clip. “We have to fight them every once in a while, that’s OK.”
In his speech at the NRA event, Trump adopted a much different tone and expressed unwavering backing for the Second Amendment. He also took intermittent jabs at his potential primary rival by referring to him as “DeSanctus” at times, the Examiner reported.
“I was proud to be the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president you’ve ever had in the White House,” Trump said during his Friday speech. “I think that’s been acknowledged, and with your support, in 2024, I will be your loyal friend and fearless champion once again as the 47th president of the United States.”
DeSantis spoke to the NRA assembly through pre-recorded remarks while en route between Virginia, where he spoke at the Liberty University Convocation, and New Hampshire, where he was scheduled to attend the Amos Tuck dinner, the news outlet reported.
“As governor, I’ve resisted calls to take up gun control even when such a stand is superficially unpopular because I understand that it is precisely at those moments when a right is unpopular that it needs true champions,” said the GOP governor.
Never Back Down is a super PAC created by ex-Virginia Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to potentially boost DeSantis’s candidacy. However, the group is not officially associated with the governor.
Last week, MAGA Inc., a super PAC that is aligned with the former president, released an ad mocking DeSantis following reports he once ate out of a pudding cup with his fingers, which the governor has denied.
The ad portrayed DeSantis as having “his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements, like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security, even raising our retirement age.”
Of the two, Trump has a clear advantage thus far in the path for the 2024 nomination. In February 2022, Trump won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll for the second straight year, with DeSantis coming in second.
The CPAC poll found that Trump received 59% and DeSantis received 28%.For comparison, the CPAC poll in 2021 found that Trump received 55% and DeSantis got 21% support.
In a hypothetical poll that removed Trump’s name as an option, DeSantis finished first with 61.4%, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo received 6.3%, and Donald Trump Jr. received 5.9%.
With a hypothetically Trump out of the running, FL GOV RON DESANTIS leads #CPAC2022 straw poll runaway leader, with Pompeo following at a mere 6 pts pic.twitter.com/mvYmgH61M5
— Brittany Shepherd (@brittanys) February 27, 2022
According to RealClearPolitics, however, DeSantis holds a lead over Trump in terms of favorability, with 41 percent to Trump’s 38.4 percent. President Joe Biden’s favorability is at 42.2 percent.
Breitbart News reported on Friday that, according to RealClearPolitics, Trump had an outright lead over Biden of 1.7 points.
“It bears repeating that this never happened once in 2020. Even left-wing pollsters show Trump doing well. The Marquette poll shows a tie. Quinnipiac only has Biden up two points. Rasmussen, one of the only pollsters that show Biden with a respectable approval rating, has Trump up by seven,” the report said.
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