Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) endorsed Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Saturday, after several fellow Republicans from the Sooner State threw their weight behind the Florida governor’s 2024 bid earlier this week.
“Governor DeSantis is a strong conservative and principled leader, and I am proud to endorse him for president,” Stitt said in a statement.
The Florida governor, who traveled to Tulsa, Okla. on Saturday afternoon, received endorsements from a former Oklahoma congressman and 20 state lawmakers on Thursday.
“As fellow Governors during COVID, DeSantis did not surrender states’ rights and individual liberties over to groupthink,” Stitt said. “In this election cycle, Oklahomans will remember that DeSantis was one of the few who never backed down in the face of adversity, because DeSantis operated with dogged conviction and shared our values for a limited government and free country.”
Stitt’s comments on the Florida governor’s COVID-19 record comes as DeSantis has faced frequent attacks on the issue from former President Trump, who remains the frontrunner in the race for the Republican nomination.
Trump has repeatedly criticized DeSantis for instituting a lockdown in the early months of the pandemic, as well as for the state’s deaths from COVID-19. However, Florida ranked in the middle of the pack in terms of its coronavirus death rate in 2021.
The Oklahoma governor also suggested in Saturday’s statement that DeSantis is a candidate who “can win and keep winning as a two-term president.”
“To deliver these same results all across America and unwind the disastrous liberal mandates of the Biden administration is going to demand a candidate who can win and keep winning as a two-term president,” Stitt wrote. “I am confident that leader is Ron DeSantis.”
DeSantis has previously taken aim at Trump’s ability to serve for only one more term, saying that it “really does take two terms as president to be able to finish this job.”