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By Ewan Palmer
News Reporter
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A clip of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vowing to "destroy leftism" if elected president has gone viral on social media.
On Monday, DeSantis was asked on Fox and Friends about his 2024 campaign and why he didn't wait until the 2028 election to run, by which point Donald Trump would not be allowed to run again should he win the next election.
Fox host Joey Jones asked: "Why is right now the time for Ron DeSantis to run for president?"
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DeSantis replied: "Because everyone knows if I'm the nominee, I will beat Biden and I will serve two terms and I will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology on the dustbin of history."
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A clip of DeSantis answering the question was posted on Twitter by Ron Fillipkowski, a former federal prosecutor. The attorney resigned from a Florida state commission in protest at the raid at the home of former Department of Health data scientist Rebekah Jones in December 2020.
The video has since been viewed more than 6.6 million times.
DeSantis' campaign team also shared a clip of the interview on Twitter on Monday, where it has since been viewed 650,000 times.
DeSantis cited his popularity in Florida while implementing hardline anti-"woke" policies while claiming he is the only Republican that can beat President Joe Biden at the next election as proof that now is the right time for him to run.
"At the end of the day, I've shown in Florida an ability to win huge swaths of voters that Republicans typically can't win while also delivering the boldest agenda anywhere in the country," DeSantis said.
"There's a reason why the legacy media is attacking me more than they're attacking anybody else—because I think they realize that if I'm successful in winning the Republican nomination, we're going to bring it home and the general election.
"And I pledge to Republican voters, if you nominate me, I will be taking the oath of office on January 20, 2025, on the west side of the Capitol. No more excuses about why we can't get it done. We need to get it done, and I will get it done."
A Public Opinion Strategies survey released May 19 showed that DeSantis, and not Trump, would beat Biden in the key swing states of Arizona and Georgia in a hypothetical election.
The survey of 500 likely voters in each state said DeSantis would beat Biden in Arizona by 47 to 43 percent, with the incumbent president beating Trump by 46 to 44 percent. The same poll showed DeSantis leading Biden in Georgia (45 to 42 percent), with Biden also beating Trump (44-43 percent).
However, a number of other GOP primary polls show that Trump is still the overwhelming favorite to clinch the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
A recent National Research Inc. survey of 500 likely South Carolina Republican primary voters, commissioned by American Greatness, showed Trump beating DeSantis into second place by 25 points in a multi-candidate ballot (43 to 18 percent).
According to FiveThirtyEight's national average tracker, Trump is ahead in the GOP primary with 53.9 percent, with DeSantis a distant second with 20.4 percent.
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