Scandal-ridden former President Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign launch has frankly been dead in the water since the moment it was officially announced… And it’s only getting worse for him with each passing day, at this point.
The ex-president — who is currently embroiled in a mountain of scandals, legal peril, and investigations — saw a large loss in his support base when an influx of notable names within the Republican Party turned their backs on him upon his campaign announcement. Multiple GOP lawmakers, high-dollar donors, and even many members of his own former administration have made it crystal clear that they won’t be throwing their blind, undying support behind Donald Trump in his third consecutive bid for the White House and the power over the country that comes with it.
But it gets worse still for Trump, as these individuals continue to not just turn their backs on him, but instead, choose to throw their support behind the ex-president’s biggest sworn political enemy — Florida’s far-Right Governor Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis has yet to even officially announce his 2024 candidacy, but as potential GOP challengers begin to fan out across the country looking for support to go head-to-head with Donald J. Trump, the FL governor is making it all too clear that it’s only a matter of time now — and most of the support and big money donors that Trump relied on through his last two presidential campaigns are flocking to DeSantis.
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Politico reports that the state of Florida is seeing a big-money donor showdown this week, as former President Trump is holding 2 events in Palm Beach in an effort to breathe some life into his dying campaign, while his adversary Ron DeSantis is holding a massive, three-day retreat for donors with the deepest pockets, just minutes from the front door of Donald’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Not only is the governor clearly attempting to overshadow Trump’s events, new reporting confirms that the massive retreat will be attended by a wide variety of some of Donald Trump’s biggest former donors.
Politico’s Alex Isenstadt reports that the donor events “…will pull back the curtain on an intensifying battle for big donors in 2024. Republicans are moving aggressively to expand their networks of major contributors and block out rivals who are competing for the same dollars. DeSantis is expected to draw around 150 top donors and other supporters to the event, many of whom formerly backed Trump.”
Interestingly enough, one of the donors set to attend DeSantis’ event is none other than Arizona donor Don Tapia.
Tapia served as a 6-figure donor to both Trump’s 2016 as well as his 2020 presidential campaigns and even earned himself a position as an ambassador in Trump’s administration thanks in large part to his resounding support. But as the chips begin to fall around the former president, Tapia has officially made the jump off the Trump Train.
“The list of defectors includes Arizona donor Don Tapia, a retired electrical company executive who served as Trump’s ambassador to Jamaica. Tapia was a six-figure contributor to Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns — but said that he had decided to back DeSantis should he run in 2024,” the report reads.
“Tapia, who gave more than $50,000 to DeSantis’ reelection bid and hosted a pair of fundraisers for him, contended that donors had grown tired of Trump’s attacks on DeSantis and predicted that the retreat would ‘overwhelmingly’ be attended by former Trump supporters.”
Tapia personally spoke with Politico and offered an explanation for why he’s abandoning the scandal-ridden ex-president, in favor of the GOP’s new golden child, Ron DeSantis: “The name-calling has turned a lot of people off. Let me tell you, we don’t like that.”
You can read the full report from Politico here.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
