Donald Trump is a “three-time loser” who should clear the field so as to allow Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to claim the mantle as the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2024, according to billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin.
Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, wants Trump to “see the writing on the wall” and decline another run for the White House — particularly after several of the former president’s endorsed candidates lost to Democrats in the recent midterm elections.
“I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” Griffin told Bloomberg News.
The longtime GOP donor cited Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the presidential election of 2020; the loss of both US Senate seats from Georgia in 2021; and last week’s midterms.
In contrast, DeSantis, the Florida governor who handily won re-election to another term, is “going to run on a record of just unbelievable accomplishment,” according to Griffin, who has donated to the former congressman.
DeSantis received some $5 million in campaign contributions from Griffin for his recent race — and has touted the Citadel chief’s decision to relocate company headquarters from deep-blue Illinois to Florida earlier this year.
Griffin did not express any disappointment in last week’s election even though his party did not score the widely anticipated “red wave.” Instead, Republicans will have to make do with holding an apparent slim majority in the House while the Senate remains in Democratic hands.
“It was a great moment — American voters came out in droves,” Griffin told Bloomberg.
“This was a triumph of democracy.”
Griffin added: “I’m quite happy about the midterms.”
Trump, however, doesn’t appear to be willing to seriously consider Griffin’s advice. The 45th president has scheduled a primetime announcement on Tuesday during which he is expected to declare his intent to run for president in 2024.
While pro-Republican media outlets, pundits and donors have expressed a willingness to discard Trump, it is unclear whether rank-and-file GOP voters who catapulted the former New York real estate tycoon to power in 2016 feel the same way.
A new Politico/Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday shows that prospective Republican voters prefer Trump to DeSantis. The former president would receive 47% in a hypothetical matchup while the Florida governor gets 33%, according to the survey.
Other polls, however, appear to show a waning appetite for Trump among GOP supporters.
The news site The Hill reported that fresh surveys taken among likely Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire show that a greater number would prefer DeSantis over Trump.
Trump appears to sense the growing threat that DeSantis poses, going so far as to call the Florida governor “Ron DeSanctimonious.”
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