Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) entered the 2024 Presidential race Wednesday evening via an online interview with Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
However, the Twitter Spaces app, to which more than 300,000 people tuned in for the announcement, reportedly had problems loading for some, while it crashed altogether for others.
“BREAKING,” MSNBC tweeted 20 minutes after the event was set to begin, “Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has officially launched his 2024 presidential run on his Twitter account amid tech issues during his conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter Spaces.”
And NBC News reporter Ben Collins tweeted, “Fewer than 500,000 people are trying to listen to this Ron DeSantis campaign launch on Twitter spaces and it is crashing everyone’s phones. Imagine what would happen if a large amount of people actually showed up.”
At 6:00pm ET, the same time the Musk interview was scheduled to begin, Desantis posted a campaign video on social media alongside the message, “I’m running for president to lead our Great American Comeback.”
He had also filed paperwork to run for President with the Federal Election Commission a few hours ahead of the online event.
DeSantis joins a race for the Republican nomination that already includes former President Trump, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll from just over a week ago found that at the moment, President Biden holds an edge among registered voters over both Trump and DeSantis.
In hypothetical match-ups, the poll found that Biden led Trump 44% to 38%, while he led DeSantis 37% to 33%.
The same poll found that among registered Republicans, Trump led DeSantis by more than double—49% to 21%.
