Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) offered a preemptive endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, even though the potential presidential contender has not yet announced an official bid for the White House.
“The next President of the United States must be a vibrant and energetic leader with the faith, vision, and courage to chart a new course,” Roy said in an email to supporters from his campaign account on Wednesday.
“America needs a leader who will truly defend her and empower the people against the destructive force of unrestrained government and corporate excess, profligate spending, and woke cultural indoctrination.”
“That leader is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis,” Roy said.
Roy appears to be DeSantis’s first official congressional endorsement for president. Several other Republicans have endorsed Trump, while Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) endorsed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who officially launched her candidacy last month.
The endorsement from Roy, one of the most vocal hard-line Republicans in the House, is a notable rejection of former President Trump. Roy broke with Trump ahead of and on Jan. 6, 2021, criticizing his move to pressure Republicans to reject 2020 presidential election results.
Roy recently clapped back at a Trump-aligned Republican consultant who said “MAGA will never forget” Roy thanking former Vice President Mike Pence — for rejecting Trump’s pressure to unilaterally reject the 2020 election results — during a Republican Study Committee meeting last year.
“America First,” Roy said in a tweet.
The Texas congressman praised DeSantis’s “faith in god” and his being a “dedicated husband and father.”
His glowing endorsement also noted DeSantis’s high-profile policy moves — many of them controversial — like rejecting mask mandates during COVID-19 and the governor’s sending of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., last year.
DeSantis’s “non-politically correct” stances and rejection of “woke corporate America and higher education,” Roy argued, are also reason to support him.
While Roy did not directly mention Trump, he nodded to 2022 midterm election losses that were widely attributed to Trump-endorsed candidates falling short.
“[DeSantis] has also proven his ability to win at the ballot box time and time again. When other Republicans were faltering in key races, Governor DeSantis provided a positive vision for the future with prudent, conservative action. The result was crystal clear: Republicans enjoyed sweeping, historic performances statewide,” Roy said.
Roy pledged to support whoever becomes the the 2024 Republican nominee, but called for a “new generation of leadership.”
“It’s time for younger, but proven, leadership to offer America eight solid years of transformational change,” Roy said. “It’s time for Ron DeSantis to be President of the United States.”