{"id":1924337,"date":"2023-05-04T14:40:22","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T18:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-trump-dominates-gop-field-in-early-endorsements-leads-desantis-by-72-5-2\/"},"modified":"2023-05-04T14:43:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T18:43:08","slug":"in-depth-trump-dominates-gop-field-in-early-endorsements-leads-desantis-by-72-5-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-trump-dominates-gop-field-in-early-endorsements-leads-desantis-by-72-5-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump leads GOP field in early endorsements, ahead of DeSantis by 72-5."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fin-depth-trump-dominates-gop-field-in-early-endorsements-leads-desantis-by-72-5-2%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1924337&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Trump Leads in Endorsements, DeSantis Lags Behind<\/h2>\n<p>Former President Donald Trump has galloped to an early lead in the endorsement sweepstakes\u2014bigly, as he might say.<\/p>\n<p>Some fans of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis worry that he hurt his chances because he had not yet declared his candidacy as of May 3. Many believe DeSantis would have entered the race sooner if not for Florida\u2019s\u00a0resign-to-run law, which lawmakers have worked to adjust, presumably to accommodate a DeSantis presidential run.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, Trump has gobbled up endorsements like a political Pac-Man, even in DeSantis\u2019 home state.<\/p>\n<h3>Trump&#8217;s Endorsements<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>11 Florida congressmen, including Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz, Greg Steube, and rising star Byron Donalds<\/li>\n<li>49 House members\u2014about one-fourth of the Republican total\u2014have announced they\u2019re supporting Trump, according to BallotPedia.org<\/li>\n<li>10 U.S. senators, plus the governors of West Virginia and South Carolina<\/li>\n<li>72 total endorsements<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>DeSantis, on the other hand, has only secured the endorsement of Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Brandon) and has a total of 5 endorsements.<\/p>\n<p>Endorsements \u201chave proven to be pretty predictive of who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-trump-dominates-gop-field-in-early-endorsements-leads-desantis-by-72-5-2\/\" title=\"Trump leads GOP field in early endorsements, ahead of DeSantis by 72-5.\">wins presidential nominating contests<\/a>,\u201d political gurus at FiveThirtyEight.com say. Since 1972, endorsements have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-trump-dominates-gop-field-in-early-endorsements-leads-desantis-by-72-5\/\" title=\"Trump leads GOP field in early endorsements, ahead of DeSantis by 72-5.\">outperformed political polls<\/a> as accurate predictors of presidential nominees, says the site, whose name derives from the total U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/warp-speed-advisor-expects-vaccine-to-ship-mid-december-herd-immunity-by-may\/\" title=\"\u2018Warp Speed\u2019 advisor expects vaccine to ship mid-December, \u2018herd immunity\u2019 by May\">electoral college votes<\/a>, 538.<\/p>\n<p>Based on FiveThirtyEight\u2019s unique scoring system, which gives more weight to prominent endorsers, Trump racked up 244 endorsement points as of May 1. The next-closest possible contender, DeSantis, trailed far behind with only 13 points.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the importance of endorsements, money, momentum, and messaging may matter more. And the power of being an incumbent leader also cannot be discounted\u2014a factor on both sides during the 2024 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Nonpartisan political analyst Nathan Gonzales, publisher of InsideElections.com, points out that President Joe Biden wields the power of the incumbency. But, in effect, so does Trump.<\/p>\n<p>As the GOP\u2019s two-time nominee, Trump remains the Republicans\u2019 de facto leader.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the complications to this cycle is that Biden and Trump are overshadowing the race in a way that is keeping so many people on the sidelines,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cTypically, we would have a lot more candidates in on the Republican side than we do now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because DeSantis is not the incumbent, \u201che can\u2019t afford to wait too long\u201d before announcing his candidacy, Gonzales said. \u201cHe has to draw a contrast with Trump, and he has to build his base of support. That can be done with a lot of money, and the governor appears to be able to raise a considerable amount.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite the importance of endorsements, Gonzales and Carol Swain, a former politics professor at Vanderbilt and Princeton universities, agree that some endorsers are dragging their feet for fear of being targeted and harassed for endorsing DeSantis over Trump.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen situations where people endorse too early,\u201d Swain said. \u201cThey endorsed a candidate for the House or the Senate, and little was known about that person, and then later, especially toward the end of the campaign, a lot of negative information will come out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Endorsements can be a double-edged sword, but early endorsements could give a candidate a critical edge. \u201cIf it looks like they\u2019re going to win, then probably they gain endorsements,\u201d Gonzales said.<\/p>\n<p>Trump&#8217;s base remains fiercely loyal, and Republican politicians who are lukewarm on Trump or are secretly anti-Trump may not want to come out and endorse an opponent of his, Gonzales said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to anger Trump and lose an opportunity to gain his supporters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Swain and Gonzales said they think Trump made a mistake by attacking DeSantis too much. Trump&#8217;s endorsement helped propel DeSantis to victory during his first gubernatorial campaign, but DeSantis also benefited from appearing on Fox News, which benefited him with that Republican-heavy TV audience, Gonzales said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump rose to power with a populist message, trying to be the voice for people who felt like they didn\u2019t have a voice anymore,\u201d Gonzales said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former President Donald Trump has galloped to an early lead in the endorsement sweepstakes\u2014bigly, as he might say. Some fans of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis worry that he hurt his chances because he had not yet declared his candidacy as of May 3. Many believe DeSantis would have entered the race sooner if not for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1196,"featured_media":1924338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[25745,4980,21510,7196,6203,5217,3634],"class_list":["post-1924337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-72-5","tag-desantis","tag-endorsements","tag-field","tag-gop","tag-leads","tag-trump"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1924337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1924338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1924337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1924337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1924337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}