Charlie Sykes: “And just like that, before a single vote had been cast in the first primary, Ron DeSantis is out, ending his campaign by citing a bogus Churchill quote as he bent the knee to Donald Trump. From shambolic launch to the final sad trombone slide into oblivion, it was all so on-brand.”
“Last week, the man from Florida declared ‘you could be the most worthless Republican in America,’ but ‘if you kiss the ring, Trump will say you are wonderful.’”
“Seven. Days. Later. He kissed the ring.”
Nate Silver: “It was the anticlimactic end to what will deservedly go down as one of the worst primary campaigns of all time, at least as judged by the gap between expectations going into the campaign and the candidate’s eventual performance. His performance was so poor, in fact, that it seems silly to suggest that DeSantis had any path to victory.”
Sarah Longwell: “A talentless candidate with a dumb strategy who said ‘God made a fighter’ but refused to fight Trump at every turn. Now he endorses Trump (and rags on Nikki) to try and preserve the tatters of his political career. This guy is done.”
