(NewsNation) — Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his presidential campaign Wednesday, and it’s receiving a lot of criticism.
DeSantis and his team are working to recover after a technical glitchy debut on Twitter.
The Twitter rollout was broadly mocked across the political spectrum. Former President Trump’s campaign blasted out an email calling it “failure to launch,” while President Biden tweeted “This link works,” directing users to a donation page for his campaign.
Other critiques are saying DeSantis is not ready for primetime.
“In true Ron DeSantis fashion, his presidential launch was quite literally not ready for primetime. Welcome to the race for the MAGA base, Ron!” Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa told Axios. MAGA Inc. spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who spoke with Fox News, shared the same reaction to DeSantis’ rocky announcement.
Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia attorney general and founder of the DeSantis political action committee Never Back Down, weighed in Thursday on “The Hill on NewsNation” and said that DeSantis is “absolutely ready.”
“He’s accomplished more in this four and a half years, in the third largest state, as executive chief than any other chief executive in any similar time, for decades. Part of the appeal of Ron DeSantis is the amazing set of accomplishments without backing down on his conservative principles across the board.”
The live announcement on Twitter was intended to serve as a bold, albeit unusual, presidential rollout for DeSantis that showcased his ability to sidestep mainstream media and go directly to his supporters. But it was ultimately riddled with panicked whispers about technical problems and frequent audio cutouts.
The Florida governor has regularly polled in second place in GOP primary surveys, behind former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis currently sits at about 29 points behind the former president, according to a polling average from FiveThirtyEight.
The Hill contributed to this reported.