Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-F.L., has no chance to win the 2024 Republican presidential primary, conservative commentator Megyn Kelly boldly predicted this week.
There are only two ways DeSantis wins in 2024: Either former President Donald Trump endorses DeSantis, or Trump dies.
Kelly said that otherwise, Trump will easily win the GOP nomination to unseat President Joe Biden.
“I think Trump sucks up all the energy in the room — no matter what,” Kelly told “The Rubin Report” host Mark Rubin over the weekend. “Even someone as skilled as a politician and smart policywise as DeSantis can’t overcome that. He can’t.”
“The only way DeSantis is going to become the Republican nominee is if Trump chooses not to run and endorses him — or he dies,” Kelly predicted.
“I just don’t see a world in which Trump says, ‘I want it’… Let’s say he says he wants it and DeSantis beats him fair and square in the primary,” she continued. “You really think the hardcore MAGA is going to abandon Trump for DeSantis? They’re not.”
“I talk to [Trump fans] all the time on my radio show,” Kelly said. “They like DeSantis but they don’t think it’s his turn.”
“They think Trump was screwed out of his last election and that he was screwed out of his first term by all the craziness in Russiagate and so on and they think he is entitled and deserves another shot at it,” she said.
“Unless Trump gracefully and graciously says get behind DeSantis, I wouldn’t put any chips on DeSantis at all.”
Take a look —
. @MegynKelly: The only way DeSantis is going to become the nominee is if Trump either endorses him or dies pic.twitter.com/l1JHuNJArn
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 16, 2022
Before the 2024 Republican presidential primary, though, DeSantis needs to win reelection as Florida’s governor in the election next month. Last week, DeSantis issued an executive order expanding voting access for the midterm elections in three counties where Hurricane Ian destroyed polling places and displaced thousands of people.
The move, which followed requests from Lee, Charlotte, and Sarasota counties and voting rights groups, comes as Florida is undertaking a massive recovery from the Category 4 hurricane that hit on Sept. 28 and leveled parts of the state’s southwest.
The order extends the number of early voting days in the three counties and authorizes election supervisors to designate additional early voting locations, steps that allow voters to cast ballots at any polling place in their registered county from Oct. 24 through Election Day, Nov. 8. Election supervisors can also relocate or consolidate polling places if necessary.
It also waives training requirements for poll workers and suspends a signature requirement for voters requesting to have a mail ballot sent to an address that is different from the one election officials have on file.
The decision was praised by Tommy Doyle, the elections supervisor in Lee County, which was the epicenter of Ian’s wrath along the Gulf Coast.
“The Executive Order is crucial because it allows us to move forward with our plans to make voting as accessible as possible to the voters of Lee County,” Doyle said Thursday.
Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a Republican appointee of the governor, said state officials are working to ensure that the election is “administered as efficiently and securely as possible across the state and in the counties that received the heaviest damage.”
The changes are similar to policies allowed by former Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, after Hurricane Michael in 2018.
During a news conference last week, DeSantis said he wants to keep the election “as normal as humanly possible” and added that there may be a need to make accommodations for a county as badly damaged as Lee, as well as possibly Charlotte County to the north.
DeSantis is strongly favored to win reelection this year over Democrat Charlie Crist.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article