Ron DeSantis has fired back at Donald Trump after months of attacks from the former President. The Florida Governor has long been tipped as the favourite to win the Republican nomination, but has suffered multiple attacks from Trump in rallies and speeches.
Over the weekend, Trump said DeSantis would be “disloyal” if he ran for the White House, and bashed his record on Covid-19.
Now, the Governor has hit back against the man who endorsed him 2018, signalling a heavyweight clash between the pair.
“I roll out of bed, I have people attacking me from all angles, it’s been happening for many, many years,” DeSantis said during a press conference.
“The good thing is, is that the people are able to render a judgment on that whether they re-elect you or not.”
The Governor was overwhelmingly re-elected in November for a second term leading Florida, winning by 59.4 percent of the vote.
“We won by the largest raw vote margin over 1.5 million votes than any governor candidate has ever had in Florida history,” DeSantis added on Tuesday.
“And in fact, we almost doubled the previous record, which I think was like (a) 780,000-vote margin.
“And so what I would just say is that verdict has been rendered by the people of the state of Florida.”
It comes after Trump said DeSantis was “trying to rewrite history” over his response to Covid-19, claiming the Governor kept Florida “closed for a long period of time”.
READ MORE: Mom’s killing of 3 kids ‘unlike any other type of homicide’
In a handful of polls, Trump trails DeSantis, whose standing with conservatives across the country has soared over the past three years while the former President’s stock with voters has dipped.
According to a University of New Hampshire Survey Centers poll, New Hampshire voters prefer DeSantis over Trump by 12 points, 42 percent to 30 percent.
Another poll from Marquette University shows Republican voters and Republican-leaning independent voters prefer DeSantis as the eventual Republican presidential nominee over Trump by 28 percentage points.
The survey said 64 percent of this group of voters preferred DeSantis as the nominee, compared to 36 percent who said they preferred Trump.
