I’ll prove Ron DeSantis stole election, says Donald Trump ally

The businessman televised his attack on Ron DeSantis, who is the former US president’s main rival in the race to win the Republican nomination for the White House in 2024.

Ron DeSantis was the standout Republican winner in the November midterm elections amid a series of disappointing results for the party. Picture: AFP

One of Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters and a vocal proponent of the idea that the presidency was stolen in 2020 has questioned the legitimacy of another recent election result, that of Trump’s biggest rival, Ron DeSantis.

Mike Lindell, who runs a pillow company, is a frequent contributor to a clutch of pro-Trump cable television news channels. He claims to have spent $US25 million ($35.5 million) on trying to prove the last presidential election was rigged and says he is going to stand to be chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on Lindell TV, his online television station, the businessman announced that he wanted to “audit” the result of the Florida gubernatorial election in last month’s midterms.

“I am going to break a little breaking news. This will probably surprise a lot of people,” Lindell said, despite being urged by a lawyer off camera not to announce his plans.

Trump at a meeting with DeSantis in the Oval Office in 2020. Picture: Mandel Ngan / AFP

DeSantis was the standout Republican winner on election night amid a series of disappointing results for the party. His landslide re-election victory has propelled him to the top of Republican polls for the 2024 presidential nomination.

Despite not being expected to announce that he is a candidate until next summer at the earliest, DeSantis, 44, is comfortably leading Trump in most polls.

This week, a YouGov survey had the Florida governor eight points ahead. In another poll this month, the lead was 23 points.

Trump, 76, and his backers know they will have to beat DeSantis to have any chance of winning the nomination and the White House in 2024.

It appears Lindell’s tactics are similar to those of the past.

“I don’t believe it,” Lindell said, of DeSantis’s easy victory. “So it’s just going to show everybody – just like we always tell you about Democrats where they stole their elections … I’m going to find out if Dade County – what happened there.”

Known as Miami-Dade county since 1997, it largely covers Miami and is usually a strong area for Democrats in Florida. DeSantis won 55.2 per cent of the vote.

“For me, I look at deviations, everybody. That’s a deviation,” Lindell said. “I don’t believe it [the Florida result].”

In a separate interview, he said that “a Republican hasn’t won Dade County like DeSantis did”. He went on to ask “if there was problems with the election, things with the machine or whatever”.

There is no evidence that the election in Florida was anything other than free and fair.

Charlie Crist, the losing Democrat, has congratulated DeSantis on his victory. The 2020 presidential election is also regarded as legitimate by all but the most ardent Trump supporters.

Another Trump loyalist attacked DeSantis this week.

Roger Stone said the Florida governor owed his career to Trump.

“Ron DeSantis became governor solely because of Donald Trump,” Stone told the Real America’s Voice channel.

In a reference to a chain of ice cream shops, he added that without Trump’s support “he would be working at a Dairy Queen right now”.

Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison as part of the Mueller investigation after being charged with witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements. He was eventually pardoned by Trump.

Trump is so far the only Republican candidate to declare for 2024.

This week the January 6 committee recommended four criminal charges against him after its investigation into last year’s riots at the US Capitol.

Many leading moderate Republicans are hoping that investigation, and others, will put paid to Trump’s 2024 campaign.

The Times