MIAMI, Fla. — Plagued by technical issues, many are describing Governor Ron DeSantis’ virtual campaign announcement via Twitter Spaces as a ‘failure to launch.’
But the Republican Presidential-hopeful still has opportunities to right the ship.
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Twenty minutes of technical issues delayed the highly anticipated announcement of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ bid for the Presidency.
“The servers are straining somewhat,” said Twitter CEO Elon Musk about five minutes into the first streaming attempt.
Following the conclusion of the announcement, the DeSantis campaign attempted to steer the narrative around the glitches.
“It broke the internet because so many people were excited about being on that Twitter Space,” said DeSantis in a video posted to Twitter Wednesday night.
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But the characterization of the stumble was nearly unanimous across media sources, including conservative outlets which called it a ‘disaster.’
DeSantis’ top primary opponent former President Donald Trump simply posted A video of a failed rocket launch with the label ‘Ron! 2024′.
“A few hundred thousand people and it not working, that’s not really breaking the internet. That is really like Twitter being broken,” said UCF political science professor Dr. Aubrey Jewett.
Jewett argued the issues with the launch took focus away from DeSantis’ candidacy itself.
Read: DeSantis Presidential launch attracts hundreds of thousands of listeners, hits technical snags
He said even when it did get up and running it reached fewer eyeballs, or ears, than a traditional launch would have.
“And so, they cost themselves a lot of potentially free publicity,” said Jewett.
DeSantis is expected to meet with donors and supporters at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami over the next few days.
The main goal: Grab as much cash as possible to help get the campaign off the ground.
Read: Ron DeSantis officially joins presidential race
At least in that regard, the campaign seems to have a lot to boast about, with more than a million dollars raised within an hour of the Governor declaring his candidacy.
And Jewett said the Governor still has plenty of opportunities to regain his stride.
“If they raise money, if they hire people on the ground, they go knock on doors, they start running a lot of campaign ads, he does lots of speeches all over the various states that have early primaries, they’ll certainly be back in the game,” said Jewett.
His first chance to bounce back will be a ‘campaign kickoff’ scheduled in Des Moines, Iowa next week.
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