DeSantis to tour early voting states after glitch-marred campaign launch

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) presidential campaign Thursday announced his first tour as an official 2024 candidate, with stops scheduled in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina as he moves forward from his Twitter Spaces campaign launch marred by technical glitches.

DeSantis’s “Our Great American Comeback Tour” will start next week in Iowa, campaign officials said, with a kickoff event Tuesday. The Florida governor will then traverse the Hawkeye State on Wednesday, stopping in Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Pella, and Cedar Rapids. On Thursday, DeSantis will travel to New Hampshire, with plans to visit Laconia, Rochester, Salem, and Manchester. The final leg of the tour will take place in South Carolina, where DeSantis is set to make stops in Beaufort, Lexington, and Greenville. 

News of the tour follows DeSantis’s formal entrance into the Republican primary late Wednesday. His campaign released a video announcing its launch as the governor took part in a Twitter Spaces conversation with the company’s head Elon Musk, but the livestream was marred by technical glitches and immediately became an easy target for DeSantis’s 2024 rivals, as well as critics on the left and the right. 

DeSantis’s team was quick to point out that conversation drew hundreds of thousands of listeners, and that he raised $1 million in the first hour of his campaign. 

The tour will include DeSantis’s first formal public campaign events, according to aides. The governor’s campaign manager, Generra Peck, said in a statement that their team is “laser-focused” on bringing DeSantis’s message to early-state voters. 

“Our campaign is committed to putting in the time to win these early nominating states.  No one will work harder than Governor DeSantis to share his vision with the country — he has only begun to fight,” Peck said.