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Ron DeSantis officially filed paperwork Wednesday afternoon to run for president in 2024.
The highly anticipated run is now off to a start and will likely see a brutal battle between the Florida governor and former President Donald Trump as the two frontrunners vye for the Republican nomination.
Gov. DeSantis went on an international trip last month with Florida first lady Casey DeSantis, further fueling speculation that his presidential announcement was imminent. Pictured: DeSantis speaks alongside his wife to the press during his visit to Tokyo, Japan on April 24
DeSantis is expected to hold later Wednesday evening a conversation on Twitter with its CEO Elon Musk confirming the run following months of speculation that he would enter the running.
But Trump still holds a commanding poll lead over DeSantis – and all other 2024 Republican challengers.
The former president holds an outright majority, leading the field with support from 53 percent of Republicans in the latest CNN/SSRS poll, which puts his backing from voters at double that of DeSantis’ 26 percent support.
That is in keeping in line with other surveys that show DeSantis far behind Trump, with a spread that has only grown during with Trump facing a raft of legal challenges.
Sources confirmed to DailyMail.com that the Florida Governor will hold a Twitter Spaces with Musk on Wednesday at 6pm ET to formally announce he is entering the race to set up a showdown with Trump.
At the age of 44, DeSantis is one of the younger candidates to launch a bid for the Oval Office and is more than three decades younger than his main rival.
The long-anticipated start of the Republicans White House campaign will begin with a conversation moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is close to Musk.
Musk confirmed Tuesday that he will be interviewing DeSantis in the live audio-only event, adding that the governor has ‘quite an announcement to make’ but at this time he is not planning to endorse a particular candidate.
Just 24 hours before the talk with Musk, Florida first lady Casey DeSantis posted a video clip to Twitter previewing the launch.
A British narrator promoted a ‘brighter future’ as a short video of Gov. DeSantis appeared with him preparing behind the scenes to go onto stage.
The video ended with a prompt for viewers to ‘text LAUNCH to 512345’.
DeSantis’ campaign will release a campaign video after his announcement Wednesday – and he is then expected to start touring states early in the primary process after Memorial Day.