“As Floridians we will be stuck with him until 2026, so continue to hold him accountable and demand better for Florida,” one state representative said.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Sunday that he was suspending his presidential campaign ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and endorsing former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis broke the news in a video posted on social media nearly a week after he finished 30 percentage points behind Trump in the Iowa caucuses.

“Ron DeSantis, a man who built his entire campaign on attacking and demonizing already marginalized communities, has finally suspended his failing Presidential campaign,” Florida Representative Anna V. Eskamani, a Democrat, posted on social media in response to the news. “As Floridians we will be stuck with him until 2026, so continue to hold him accountable and demand better for Florida.”

In his video, DeSantis explained his decision.

“If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome—more campaign stops, more interviews—I would do it,” he said. “But I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

– Winston Churchill pic.twitter.com/ECoR8YeiMm

— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) January 21, 2024

In responding to the news, activists and journalists high-lighted DeSantis’ far-right record on reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights. As Florida governor, he signed laws nearly banning abortion and prohibiting educators from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity with their K-12 students.

“Ron DeSantis should be forced to carry his Presidential campaign to term,” Melanie D’Arrigo, the executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, posted on social media.

Independent LGBTQ+ journalist Erin Reed wrote that DeSantis “is one of the most vile anti-LGBTQ+ politicians of the modern era. If he had his way, trans people would be eradicated from the Earth and queer people would have to go back into hiding.”

“The end of his campaign is a moment we can all be thankful for,” Reed said.

Equality California posted that the “real loss” of DeSantis’ career was “the years of unnecessary struggles he imposed on LGBTQ+ youth.”

“Their courage outshines his ambition,” the advocacy group said.

DeSantis’ departure sets up the rest of the Republican primary to be a contest between Trump and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

“I want to say to Ron, he ran a great race. He’s been a good governor, and we wish him well,” Haley said in response to the news. “Having said that, it’s now one fella and one lady left.”

In his message, DeSantis chose to endorse Trump, despite the fact that pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. funded more than $ 10 million worth of attacks against him before he even announced his presidential bid, as NBC News reported.

“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said, adding that “we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”

Toward the end of his announcement, DeSantis repeated a quote he attributed to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

However, the International Churchill Society includes this quote on a list of quotations misattributed to Churchill, as journalist Dominic Pino pointed out.

The society listed the quote DeSantis used next to another about success and failure.

“We can find no attribution for either one of these, and you will find that they are broadly attributed to Winston Churchill,” the society wrote. “They are found nowhere in his canon, however. An almost equal number of sources found online credit these sayings to Abraham Lincoln—but we have found none that provides any attribution in the Lincoln Archives.”

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  desantis, election, florida, suspension