Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned Tuesday that Republicans are “going to lose” in November’s presidential election if former President Donald Trump is named the party’s nominee.
“If Donald Trump is the nominee, the election will revolve around all these legal issues — his trials, perhaps convictions if he goes to trial and loses there, and about things like Jan. 6,” DeSantis, a 2024 rival, said during a CNN town hall.
“We’re going to lose if that’s the decision voters are making based on that. We don’t want it to be a referendum on those issues,” he added.
Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges.
He has been sued in New York and indicted in Georgia, Florida, New York and Washington. The charges against him include allegations that he plotted to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results, that he was involved in a hush-money scheme ahead of his 2016 election, that he mishandled classified documents and obstructed federal authorities’ efforts to recover them, and that he fraudulently inflated his business assets by billions.
Colorado and Maine last month removed Trump from each state’s primary ballot due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The U.S. Supreme Court recently said that it will review the decision made by Colorado’s Supreme Court next month.
This upcoming election should be focused on things like the economy, crime, and the U.S.-Mexico border and not Trump’s litany of legal issues, DeSantis said.
“We don’t want it to be a referendum on those issues. We want it to be a referendum on the country going in the wrong direction, and a candidate like me being a president that can reverse the decline,” he said.
Regardless of Trump’s legal woes, DeSantis and fellow 2024 rival Nikki Haley have been struggling to make a dent in Trump’s poll numbers.
Trump easily won Monday night’s Iowa caucuses, with DeSantis coming in a distant second place and the former South Carolina governor coming in a close third.
The nation’s first Republican presidential primary is Tuesday in New Hampshire.