- The ‘Ready for Ron’ PAC is led by Ed Rollins, Ronald Reagan’s campaign chairman in in 1984, the year he won a landslide victory and cinched 49 states
- The draft committee is unaffiliated with DeSantis himself, and now is working to amass an army of supporters to convince him to run for president
- The group is also headed by Lilian Rodriguez-Baz
- Asked whether DeSantis should run if Trump jumps in, Rodriguez-Baz told DailyMail.com: ‘We’re not concerned with whether or not Trump is going to run’
- A recent poll of Wisconsin state GOP convention-goers found that more Republicans want DeSantis to be the nominee than Trump
A new political action committee has launched to call on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president in 2024.
The ‘Ready for Ron’ PAC is led by Ed Rollins, Ronald Reagan’s campaign chairman in in 1984, the year he won a landslide victory and cinched 49 states, and Lilian Rodriguez-Baz, an appellate attorney and conservative activist.
The draft committee is unaffiliated with DeSantis himself, and now is working to amass an army of supporters to convince him to run for president.
The group avoided badmouthing former President Trump, who has consistently teased a 2024 race, but says they are moving in on DeSantis since Trump has not announced his candidacy.
‘The era of President Trump was wonderful, but now, since he isn’t currently running, we must get ready for a new leader, we must be Ready for Ron,’ Rollins said in a statement.
The group has launched a petition online for supporters to sign to ‘draft’ DeSantis to run for the presidency, as well as a new advertising campaign to garner support for a DeSantis candidacy. The PAC also took the unusual step of asking the FEC to allow it to share its supporter list with DeSantis if he does launch a bid for the presidency.
Not wanting to commit to challenging a former president, potential 2024 contenders have so far been stuck in limbo waiting on Trump to publicly commit one way or another on whether he’ll run. Trump has been testing his ‘kingmaker’ status within the party over a series of spring primary races that pit Trump-backed candidates against a number of his incumbent foes who refused to deny the results of the 2020 election.
Rodriguez-Baz told DailyMail.com that ‘Ready for Ron’ was not concerned with whether or not the former president had plans to run again.
Asked whether DeSantis should run if Trump jumps into the race, Rodriguez-Baz said: ‘We’re not concerned with whether or not Trump is going to run.’
‘To the people that are concerned with that, or to the people that are, I guess, tempted to draw any parallels, we would say that Ron DeSantis is probably the best person, if you look out on the sea of politicians right now, to carry on Trump’s America First agenda policy.’
Rodriguez- Baz, who emigrated to Florida from Cuba as a child, added: ‘We see so many people that have moved to Florida in droves, and that’s something that you know, anybody can verify. It’s an undeniable fact. And a big part of that is because of what Ron DeSantis has done, his COVID responses. We’ve essentially have, we have a leader who’s not catering to the trends of this woke and toxic culture.’
A recent poll of Wisconsin state GOP convention-goers found that more Republicans want DeSantis to be the nominee than Trump.
Viewing a potential 2024 field, 38 percent of convention-goers wanted DeSantis, 32 percent favored Trump and 7 percent wanted former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Asked if he has presidential ambitions, DeSantis has said he is focused on winning re-election in the Sunshine State this November.
The Florida governor has as of late garnered national headlines for his bill that bans classrooms from discussing gender and sexuality in grades kindergarten through 3rd and his war with the Walt Disney Company.