Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis talks with audience members during a fundraising picnic for U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, Saturday, May 13, 2023, in Sioux Center, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

After weeks of speculation, the Sunshine State’s most polemic pudding eater has officially announced that he will seek the highest office in the land — and attempt to unseat former president Donald Trump as the GOP front runner. 

DeSantis’ coming out party was designed to draw headlines: He became the first person to publicize a presidential run on Twitter and was introduced by tech capitalist David Sacks alongside Tesla CEO, former Twitter CEO and so-called “memelord” Elon Musk. The historic and bizarre circumstances of the proclamation immediately grew underwhelming when the announcement, which was platformed on Twitter’s social conference platform, “Spaces,” became plagued with technical difficulties. 

Multiple times, as Sacks sought to MC the event, the audio began to cut and then became consumed by echoes. At one point, listeners could hear Musk mumbling to himself and shuffling papers around. “We’ve got so many people here that we are kind of melting the servers,” whispered Sacks. 

It’s still unclear if the dynamic duo was actually unprepared. How could a billion-dollar tech company be unable to handle 600,000 listeners on a stream that doesn’t even include video? For reference, YouTube streams have been known to climb into the millions. DeSantis later sought to spin this as evidence of his popularity. 

Finally, after a series of comedic errors, DeSantis said that he was “running for president of the United States, to lead our great American comeback.” According to DeSantis, “the country is going in the wrong direction” because President Joe Biden “takes his cues from the woke mob.” Conversely, it was his raw charisma and uncompromised leadership that would “restore sanity” and eradicate the “woke mind virus” with “reality, facts and enduring principles.”

Other buzzwords and bromides in DeSantis’ hour-and-half-long ramble included “free speech,” “anti-woke,” “gender ideology” and “woke banking.” 

But even the virality of the moment, one seemingly born out of rubbernecking, seemed to have little impact on polling. Four new national polls released the following day show Trump with a commanding lead. One poll showed that 53% of Republicans would like to see the former president take the nomination — more than double that of DeSantis. He also leads DeSantis among whites without college degrees by 33 points, and among “very conservative” voters by 45 points. 

“Wow. The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER!” Trump posted from his True Social, his personal conservative social media site. “His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!”