Fox News host Laura Ingraham has urged Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and neoconservative candidate Nikki Haley to “step aside and endorse Trump” for the good of the party.
Ingraham called on the runner-ups to back down during Tuesday’s episode of “The Ingraham Angle.”
The pundit said DeSantis has “a lot to be proud of” after he came in second place during the Iowa caucuses on Monday.
Despite coming in second, DeSantis was still about 30 points behind Trump.
Ingraham said that the former president “is simply too powerful” for another candidate to get the nomination this cycle.
“As a candidate on the trail, he worked his butt off. And people forget how young he is. So with what three more years as Florida’s governor, he can build an even greater track record of success in that very important state,” Ingraham said. “So a future in the Republican party for him could be really bright, but he’s simply not going to be president this time around.”
“It’s not happening, Trump is simply too powerful and has endured too much,” Ingraham continued.
The Fox host said that DeSantis is hurting his political future by continuing to take on the wildly popular former president.
“And every day that Ron DeSantis stays on the campaign trail criticizing Trump is a day that hurts Ron DeSantis’s political future. He doesn’t gain anything from it, that’s for sure. And Trump, he’s not hurt by it at all. So it’s time to step aside and endorse Trump,” Ingraham said.
Laura: It’s time to step aside and endorse Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/CPDjqkVkaw
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) January 17, 2024
Many have pointed out that DeSantis dropping out with give Haley a better chance.
Haley is seemingly more popular with Democrats and the media class than with actual Republican voters.
A poll conducted ahead of the Iowa caucuses by NBC News, the Des Moines Register, and Iowa pollster Selzer & Co. found that Haley supporters in Iowa are twice as likely to vote for Joe Biden as they are Donald Trump, should she not win the Republican nomination.
The pollsters asked likely Iowa caucus-goers, “If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in the general election in November, would you vote for him, vote for Joe Biden, vote for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., or vote for some other third-party candidate?”
Across the board, just 11 percent of Republican caucus-goes across the board said they would flip and vote for Biden if Trump was the nominee. Looking only at Haley supporters, that number jumped to a whopping 43 percent.
Just 23 percent of Haley’s supporters said they would vote for Trump over Biden.
In contrast, 64 percent of DeSantis supporters said that they would vote for Trump if he was the nominee.
NBC News reports, “These new findings from the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa further illustrate the degree to which Haley is bringing in support from independents, Democrats and Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Fully half of her Iowa caucus supporters are independents or crossover Democrats, according to the survey results. Overall, Haley took 20% for second place in the survey, compared to 48% for Trump.”
“The poll also shows three-quarters of caucusgoers believing Trump can defeat Biden despite the former president’s legal challenges. But again, a majority of Haley’s supporters think it will be nearly impossible for Trump to win,” the report added.
In 2019, Haley was elected to Boeing’s board of directors months after leaving her post in the Trump administration. At the time, she had a net worth less than $1 million.
“Post her tenure, reports surfaced that Haley boosted her fortune eight-fold — to $8 million — after leaving the Trump administration,” the New York Post reported at the time.
Soon after, the former UN ambassador purchased a $2.4 million waterfront estate on Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
