DeSantis (finally) drops out of the race. Here’s what that means for Trump and Haley

And then there were two.

Ron DeSantis’s presidential bid ended unceremoniously on Sunday with a Twitter video marking the end of a campaign that had begun on the same platform. It was a ho-hum but not necessarily surprising end for a candidate who had placed a distant second in a state where he has thrown everything he had against the frontrunner and who faced a difficult primary contest calendar going ahead.

Now, the race is down to Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, the latter of whom remains the far-and-away favourite to win it all after a decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses; the former president won 51 per cent of the vote. The 2024 GOP primary has, so far, played out exactly as the polls predicted it would.

So what does Sunday’s development mean for Mr DeSantis’s two rivals for the nomination?

Donald Trump

Mr Trump was once the favourite for the nomination. After today, this could easily become a coronation.

In his video remarks announcing his decision on Sunday, Mr DeSantis made two things clear: one, that he believes the primary is over, and two, that he sees himself firmly aligned with the greater hard-right faction of the GOP represented by Donald Trump and Trumpism. Nikki Haley, he reasons, represent’s the party’s old guard — a decaying establishment he sees as on its last legs.

That latter point is the key news here; Ron DeSantis was not running as an alternative to Donald Trump because he believed that he could change the direction of the GOP — or necessarily even wanted to. The Florida governor was running to be Mr Trump’s successor in a movement that has been ascendant within the GOP since the days of Tea Party Republicans and which saw its power at its zenith during the rise of Mr Trump and his one term in