Recently, giving his most definitive answer yet, a defiant Ron DeSantis said he would not drop out of the race nor offer his endorsement to Donald Trump.
In an interview with ABC News, despite his low poll numbers, the Florida governor said that regardless of what happens in Iowa next week, he is staying in the race.
DeSantis said he plans to do “well” in the caucuses but promised to stay in the primary for the “long haul” regardless of the results.
“We’ve done everything we need to do,” he said.
About a week after the caucuses, DeSantis will compete in the New Hampshire primary but has lost substantial ground there, per polls, and now trails rival Nikki Haley.
“I like to be written off. I like to be the underdog,” he told Scott.
Trump has said on the campaign trail that DeSantis is going to leave the race right after Iowa and endorse him.
“That’s a lie, totally fabricated,” DeSantis told ABC News. “But, you know, they do that because they want some of the caucusgoers to think, well, I’ll do it.”
However, as further evidence of his failed candidacy, DeSantis has shown an increased willingness to attack Trump directly. In the same ABC News interview, he challenged Trump’s recent comment about “negotiating” a settlement to the Civil War.
“I don’t even know what he’s talking about,” DeSantis told ABC’s Rachel Scott of Trump’s remarks. “I mean, Lincoln did what he had to do. He ended up ushering in the abolition of slavery, and he saved the Union. That’s a huge victory for the Republican Party.”
Among other remarks about the “War Between the States,” Trump said that had Lincoln negotiated the issues rather than fought a war over them, “nobody would have even heard of Abraham Lincoln.”
“So, I don’t know. Relitigating that doesn’t make much sense to me,” DeSantis added. In a statement, a Trump spokesperson slammed critics of what he said about the Civil War, blaming “elitists” for “spew[ing] their hatred.”