Stefanik calls on Haley, DeSantis to drop out and back Trump

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) called on Trump’s primary rivals to drop out of the race and endorse the former president, arguing that nobody has a shot at beating him, and that unity could ensure a 2024 defeat for President Biden.

“I am calling on every other candidate — all of whom have no chance to win — to drop out so we can unify and immediately rally behind President Trump,” she said Monday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The sentiment comes after Trump swept Iowa, taking about 51 percent of the vote in the first primary of the 2024 election cycle. Rival candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took 21 percent of the vote, while former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley took 19 percent.

Biotechnology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson dropped out of the GOP race following Monday’s results.

Stefanik’s demands go one step further than a Tuesday suggestion from The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which proposed DeSantis leave the race in order to give Haley a real chance against Trump, one-on-one.

“Mr. DeSantis faces no clear path to the nomination. He’s well behind Ms. Haley in New Hampshire and South Carolina,” the editorial board wrote Tuesday. “If he believes, as he says, that Mr. Trump can’t win in November, he should leave the race and give Ms. Haley a chance to take on Mr. Trump one on one.”

Both Haley and DeSantis have offered themselves as superior Trump alternatives, often painting Trump as good in his day, but not what the country needs going forward.

Haley has performed well in New Hampshire polling, with the next GOP primary vote set for Jan. 23. In the Granite State, she trails Trump by about 8 percentage points, according to polling averages from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ. In national polls, Haley and DeSantis are neck and neck, but still trail Trump by a large margin.

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