Ron DeSantis donors and surrogates regularly claim that Donald Trump’s winning days are over, and that the Republican Party needs new leadership. Their claims were rubbished overnight, however, as the Trump-backed candidate in Kentucky obliterated his DeSantis-backed opponent. Upon his victory, Daniel Cameron declared: “The Trump culture of winning is alive and well in Kentucky.”
Trump-backed Cameron won the GOP nomination for the Kentucky governorship with a double-digit triumph over runners-up Ryan Quarles and DeSantis’s preferred candidate Kelly Craft.
In what was described as a “proxy war” between Trump and DeSantis ahead of the 2024 Republican nomination, the former President was victorious with his preferred candidate receiving almost 100,000 more votes than DeSantis’s.
Following his victory, Cameron announced: “Of course, a big thank you to President Donald J. Trump for his support and his endorsement of this campaign.”
WATCH: Kentucky GOP gubernatorial nominee @DanielCameronAG thanks Donald Trump for his support and takes a BRUTAL shot at Ron DeSantis.
“The Trump culture of winning is alive and well in Kentucky”
🔥🔥
(The DeSantis-endorsed candidate finished third)
— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) May 17, 2023
Ron Might Not Care.
Craft, endorsed by Ron DeSantis, finished with just 52,128 votes to Cameron’s 144,415. Skeptics have claimed the endorsement was less to do with electoral victory, and more to do with DeSantis courting Kelly’s husband Joe, a hyper-wealthy Romney donor who is the president and chief executive officer of Alliance Resource Partners, the third-largest coal producer in the eastern United States.
Craft was endorsed by a number of Republicans including Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pompeo, and Ted Cruz. She even spent $4.5 million more on campaign ads than Cameron, who will face current Governor Andy Beshear in November.
The news worsened for DeSantis on the night, as his preferred candidate in the Jacksonville mayor’s race, Daniel Davis, lost to the Democrat nominee Donna Deegan.