DeSantis nabs presidential endorsement from GOP Home member

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, an outspoken member of the far-right Home Freedom Caucus, preemptively endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president on Wednesday, pushing his fellow Republican Home members to look past former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination.

The general public displaying of help seems to be DeSantis’ first endorsement from a member of Congress and comes because the governor has been courting conservative lawmakers forward of a proper announcement anticipated after the top of the state legislative session in Could.

Roy wrote in an electronic mail despatched from his marketing campaign that the occasion wants “a brand new technology of management” on the helm, and he argued that DeSantis has “confirmed his means to win on the poll field time and time once more.” The feedback had been implicit knocks on the 76-year-old Trump, who misplaced his personal reelection bid in 2020 and was blamed for an unexpectedly poor showing by Republican candidates in final yr’s midterms.

“When different Republicans had been faltering in key races, Governor DeSantis supplied a constructive imaginative and prescient for the long run with prudent, conservative motion. The consequence was crystal clear: Republicans loved sweeping, historic performances statewide,” Roy wrote.

Roy made clear that he’ll help the eventual Republican nominee even when it is not DeSantis.

“America has been constructed upon and outlined by the sacrifices of 1 technology for the subsequent,” Roy wrote. “When Republicans select our 2024 presidential nominee — whom I intend to help towards Joe Biden or every other Democrat candidate — I consider it’s time for a brand new technology of management. It’s time for youthful, however confirmed, management to supply America eight stable years of transformational change.”

His endorsement of DeSantis may open the door for different members of Congress to defy Trump by backing DeSantis as nicely. Greater than two dozen Home members have already endorsed Trump’s reelection bid, together with the No. 3 Home Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York.

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Roy additionally attended a weekend retreat hosted by DeSantis final month that included Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.

Roy has clashed with the previous president previously and voted to certify the outcomes of the 2020 election that Trump had falsely claimed was stolen from him through voter fraud.

The congressman has held a Home seat since 2019 and emerged as a boisterous member of the chamber’s Freedom Caucus. He was a key holdout towards Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s management election earlier this yr.

The endorsement got here the identical day that MAGA, Inc., a Trump-supporting tremendous PAC, filed an ethics complaint against DeSantis in Florida, accusing him of violating marketing campaign finance and ethics guidelines with a shadow run for the White Home. A DeSantis spokesperson dismissed the criticism as “frivolous and politically motivated.”