Charlie Neibergall/AP
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has suspended his Republican presidential campaign, ending his 2024 White House bid just before the New Hampshire primary while endorsing his bitter rival Donald Trump.
The decision leaves Mr Trump and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley as the last major candidates remaining in the race ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
This is the scenario Mr Trump’s foes in the Republican Party have long sought, raising the stakes for this week’s contest as the party’s last chance to stop the former president who has so far dominated the race.
But as some Trump critics cheered, Mr DeSantis nodded towards Mr Trump’s primary dominance – and attacked Ms Haley – in an exit video he posted on social media.
He also, somewhat hilariously, misquoted the former British prime minister Winston Churchill, captioning the video:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
But history buffs have been quick to point out that Churchill never uttered those words, with Otto English, who has published a book on the matter, attributing them to a beer commercial.
The International Churchill Society’s website also concurs, noting:
“We base this on careful research in the canon of fifty million words by and about Churchill, including all of his books, articles, speeches and papers.”
