Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday vetoed a sweeping social media bill that would have effectively barred Florida residents under the age of 16 from opening accounts on services like TikTok and Instagram, even if their parents let them.

In a message on XMr. DeSantis said he vetoed the teen social media ban bill because the state legislature was “about to introduce another, superior bill” that recognized the rights of parents. Last week, the governor had suggested that the measure went too far, because it would nullify the authority of parents.

Shortly after news of the veto, Paul Renner, a Republican who is Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, said: in a message on X that the new bill would be “an even stronger product to protect our children from online harm.”

While several states have recently passed laws requiring parental consent for children’s social media accounts, the Florida measure that DeSantis vetoed was intended as a more general ban. It would have required certain social networks to verify users’ ages, prevent people under 16 from signing up for accounts and terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users.

Parent groups, including the Florida Parent-Teacher Association, had urged Mr. DeSantis to veto the bill after the state Legislature passed it last week.

The bill would almost certainly have faced constitutional challenges regarding the right of young people to freely seek information. It would also likely have sparked online protests from teens who rely on social apps to communicate with friends and family, express themselves creatively, keep up with the news and follow political, sports, food and fashion trends .

NetChoice, a trade group that represents Meta, Snap, TikTok and other technology companies, said it welcomed Mr. DeSantis’ veto. In an email, Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of NetChoice, said the measure, if signed, would have “replaced parents with government and Silicon Valley.” He added that the provision in the bill requiring social media sites to verify the age of users would have led to “data collection on a scale never before seen in the state.”

Now, Florida lawmakers plan to amend another bill that would regulate sexually explicit online material that is “harmful to minors,” adding provisions to restrict certain social networks that have “addictive characteristics,” such as endlessly scrolling content .

That bill would require pornographic websites to verify the age of users and exclude people under the age of 18. In the past two years, Louisiana, Utah, Mississippi and other states have passed similar laws.

In his post on

The Supreme Court is weighing free speech challenges against other social media laws in cases that could reshape the internet. One of those cases involves a 2021 Florida statute, currently on hold, that would ban platforms like Facebook and X from permanently banning political candidates. (NetChoice is one of two technology trade groups challenging state laws in Supreme Court cases.)

But the bill banning social media for teens in Florida, which Mr. DeSantis vetoed on Friday, went further and represented one of the most restrictive measures yet passed by a state legislature amid an escalating national effort to services such as TikTok and Instagram in name. of children’s safety.

Over the past 18 months, other states have passed new online safety rules that still allow younger teens to use social media.

Utah, Arkansas, Texas and Ohio passed laws last year that would force social networks to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent before giving accounts to children under 16 or 18. In 2022, California passed a law requiring social networking and video recording gaming apps used by minors to enable the highest privacy settings for those young people by default — and disable certain features like video autoplay.

The crackdown on social media is notable because it is unusually bipartisan. California, a Democratic-led state, and Utah, a Republican-led state, both recently passed groundbreaking laws that take different approaches to protecting young people online. In addition, last year Florida became the first state to require public schools to ban students from using cell phones during class.

Balancing new restrictions on social media with the right to free speech can be difficult. NetChoice successfully sued to stop the new laws in Arkansas, California and Ohio. Judges in those cases said the children’s online safety statutes most likely infringed on NetChoice members’ freedom of speech to disseminate information, as well as young people’s rights to access it.

Mr. DeSantis said last week that he was “grappling” with Florida law and weighing it against the right of parents to make decisions about their children’s online activities.

“You have to find the right balance when you look at these things between policies that help parents get where they want to go versus policies that straight up push parents aside,” he said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida told supporters in a call on Wednesday that he would not want to be Donald J. Trump's vice president, suggesting it would be a “mistake” for Mr. Trump to consider “identity politics” in making his selection for a running mate and left wide open the door to a 2028 presidential run.

“I haven't ruled anything out,” Mr. DeSantis said of a 2028 presidential run, as he outlined plans to stay involved in politics beyond Florida.

In a more than 30-minute call held to thank backers who had volunteered to serve as his presidential delegates, the governor was unusually candid in assessing his failed 2024 campaign a month after he dropped out of the race. He also sounded off on conservative news media outlets that he said had backed the former president about him.

He also spoke about “all the baggage Trump has” as a concern for Republicans headed toward the fall, but said that President Biden was “going to be the gift that keeps on giving.”

And he expressed no regrets about his run for the party's presidential nomination, though he was frustrated that “the race ended up being an incumbent race.”

“The dynamics of the race were, he kept getting dictated, and he drew more support out of sympathy for that,” Mr. DeSantis said of Mr. Trump at one point.

At another, Mr. DeSantis claims: “If it was really just eight, 10 Republicans who, who had never obviously been president, unlike Trump, I think we would have run away with it.”

The New York Times obtained a recording of the call, which was first reported on by The New York Post.

At one point, Mr. DeSantis lacerated Mr. Trump's record as president, saying he had failed to deliver on many campaign promises.

“I was in Congress the first two years when Trump was president,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I mean, we didn't really do what we said we would do. You didn't see any major immigration, border or any type of legislation. You didn't see anything with repeating and replacing Obamacare. You didn't see anything about reining in the bureaucracy. I mean, it was pretty, pretty mundane stuff.”

Mr. DeSantis complained of the role of right-wing media in the presidential primary, which he said provided “no accountability at all for anything Trump would say.” He added that such a lack of holding Mr. Trump to his agenda was a concern if he returned to the White House.

“Their business model just doesn't work if they offer any criticism of Trump,” Mr. DeSantis said of the conservative news media, framing his criticism as “just an observation.”

“He said at some point he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote,” Mr. DeSantis went on, referring to Mr. Trump. “Well, I think he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and the conservative media wouldn't even report on it.”

Mr. DeSantis also made clear that he had no interest in being Mr. Trump's running mate.

“People were mentioning me — like, I am not — I am not doing that,” he said, outlining that “Donald Trump's criteria will be” different than his would have been.

“I have heard that they're looking more in identity politics. I think that's a mistake. I think you should just focus on who the best person for the job would be,” Mr. DeSantis said.

One supporter asked Mr. DeSantis if he was afraid of being marginalized by Mr. Trump.

Mr. DeSantis expressed caution on such news reports but appeared to address years-old bad blood between him and one of Mr. Trump's top aides, Susie Wiles, who had once worked for Mr. DeSantis.

“I think he's got people in his inner circle who were part of our orbit years ago that we fired,” he said. “And I think some of that is, they just have an ax to grind.”

Chris LaCivita, a top Trump advisor, called Mr. DeSantis a “sad little man” in a post on X after the recording of the call surfaced.

Mr. DeSantis sounded very much like a politician still eyeing his political future, including as he talked about pressing for term limits and other national concerns. “I want to be helpful at the state level across the country,” he said.

The governor recounted that voters often told him that, although they were supporting Mr. Trump this year, they would like to support him in the future.

“I didn't want to hear this,” he said. “But, I mean, I heard from a lot of people on the ground in these early states that, you know, they thought I was so wonderful, I'd be such a great president. But they wanted to give Trump one more shot, and they would just support me in '28.”

It cost Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida more than $160 million to come in second place in a single nominating contest.

That astonishing sum makes Mr. DeSantis' failed presidential bid one of the most expensive in the modern Republican primary. But the details of where the money went, filed Wednesday in filings with the Federal Election Commission, show just how generous Mr. DeSantis and his allied super PACs were.

They routed at least $53 million through companies controlled or owned by Jeff Roe, the powerful Republican strategist who was the top adviser to Never Back Down, Mr. DeSantis' main super PAC.

They spent $31.3 million on television advertising.

They spent at least $3.3 million on private flights between the campaign and Never Back Down.

And they donated roughly $110,000 to the campaigns of state and federal elected officials who had supported Mr. DeSantis.

All for 23,420 votes in Iowa.

Most of the money – $130 million – was spent by Never Back Down. The super PAC was said to be Mr. DeSantis' secret weapon in his quest to take down former President Donald J. Trump, including through an ambitious recruitment operation built to knock on the doors of DeSantis supporters as many as five times to knock. His campaign spent another $28 million.

The hugely costly effort yielded negligible results, and Mr. DeSantis decided to quit before the New Hampshire primary and endorse Mr. Trump. But it did test the limits of campaign finance law.

Never Back Down played an unprecedented role in leading Mr. DeSantis' campaign, even though campaigns and super PACs are not allowed to coordinate their strategies. Mr. DeSantis transferred many tasks traditionally overseen by campaign officials — such as organizing events and organizing votes — to the outside group.

The tricky arrangement left key decisions in the hands of super PAC leaders, rather than Mr. DeSantis' close circle of trusted advisers. The tensions between Never Back Down and the campaign created a wave of negative news stories that at times overshadowed Mr. DeSantis' candidacy, especially among wealthy donors.

Representatives for the DeSantis campaign and Never Back Down did not respond to requests for comment. Neither does Mr. Roe.

Mr. DeSantis was not the only Republican candidate this cycle to spend big and then drop out. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott entered the race with $22 million in his campaign coffers, carried over from his 2022 re-election bid. Within weeks, a super PAC backing him had raised another $20 million.

But by the fall, Mr. Scott's fundraising flow dried up as enthusiasm for his candidacy waned, new federal documents show. His groups spent heavily, with the campaign spending more than $30 million in total and the super PAC spending $21.8 million, including about $15 million on ads.

Details of his spending are difficult to discern because large chunks of the money went to two limited liability companies that had no other apparent operations, based in Staples stores in the suburbs.

Ultimately, Mr. Scott didn't even make it to Iowa and dropped out in November.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy poured $25.6 million of his own money into his campaign, in the form of loans and contributions, before quitting the race after finishing in fourth place in Iowa. By the end of December, his campaign had $1.5 million left. A super PAC backing him raised $8.7 million and spent almost the entire amount.

Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy businessman, lent his campaign $14.8 million; the campaign spent $17.8 million before dropping out of the race in December. A super PAC backing him raised $24.1 million and spent $24 million.

But Mr. DeSantis' bid and its collapse are notable for their magnitude. Aside from Mr. Trump, no other candidate entered the race with more financial support, more hype or higher poll numbers.

By the time Mr. DeSantis entered the race in late May, Never Back Down had a war chest of nearly $120 million, including more than $80 million left over from Mr. DeSantis' re-election as Florida's governor. In his first six weeks as a candidate, his campaign also raised more than $20 million. (Unlike campaigns, super PACs are allowed to accept unlimited amounts of money from donors, becoming a means for the ultra-wealthy to support candidates.)

Never Back Down planned a $100 million ground game to mobilize voters across the country, including a massive voter campaign that would deploy paid door knockers to reach likely DeSantis voters in early candidate states. The group pledged to raise $200 million.

Warning signs soon emerged.

Mr. DeSantis insisted on flying on private planes, a habit he picked up during his time in Tallahassee — and an unsustainable habit for a candidate who was not independently wealthy.

The campaign spent its opening weeks stretched beyond its means, prompting a reshuffle and major staff cuts in July. Never Back Down, which had also spent large sums of money, picked up much of the slack, the records show, including footing the bill for Mr. DeSantis' flights.

Mr. Roe was a central figure in DeSantis' candidacy, and the large sum of money passed through his companies reflects his ambitions to run the nation's largest political consulting firm. At times he attracted unwanted publicity for the campaign, and he was also the target of ridicule by Trump's surrogates. He left the super PAC in December, as the group collapsed in turmoil.

Never Back Down also quietly sent some of its money, $2.75 million, to Win It Back, a super PAC backed by the Club for Growth, an influential conservative anti-tax group. Around the same time, Win It Back published a series of anti-Trump ads. The contribution was not disclosed until after Mr. DeSantis quit.

While Mr. DeSantis took his jabs at Mr. Trump for much of the campaign, the donation illustrated how super PACs can be used to do a candidate's dirty work without leaving many fingerprints.

Win It Back eventually pulled the ads, saying they were unpopular with Republican voters — a sign of the apparent futility of challenging Trump in a Republican Party primary.

Meanwhile, another of Mr. DeSantis' commissions was used to show his apparent gratitude to several politicians who had supported him at the risk of drawing Mr. Trump's ire. The group, Great American Comeback, donated more than $110,000 to these officials, including $6,600 to Representative Chip Roy of Texas, who relentlessly harassed Mr. DeSantis in the final weeks of the campaign. More than a dozen Iowa state lawmakers also received contributions.

All this has caused Mr. DeSantis' fundraising to decline, while his poll numbers have plummeted and his shaky moments as a candidate have piled up. While Mr. DeSantis had entered the race as the darling of many conservative donors hoping to leave Mr. Trump behind, the Florida governor saw much of that support leak away, first to Mr. Scott and then to the former governor Nikki Haley of South Africa. Carolina, who stays in the game.

Mr. DeSantis' campaign raised less and less money each quarter of 2023; Never Back Down raised just $14.5 million in the second half of the year.

Allies of Mr. DeSantis jumped in to help, starting their own super PACs seeded with money from Never Back Down. The formation of the new groups Fight Right and Good Fight led to tensions at Never Back Down, where many top executives resigned or were fired.

Fight Right and Good Fight took over television advertising, while Never Back Down focused on voting efforts, a move publicly encouraged by the DeSantis campaign.

The two new super PACs spent $13.8 million on television advertising in Iowa. Much of their money came from transfers from Never Back Down and Great American Comeback, while only a fraction came from donors, mostly wealthy Floridians loyal to Mr. DeSantis, as well as CDR Enterprises, a major state contractor.

By the end of 2023, Never Back Down had spent every cent of the $120 million it had in its coffers when Mr. DeSantis began his candidacy, and then some.

Three weeks later, Mr. DeSantis was out of the race.

In a victory for Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, a federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Walt Disney Company alleging that Mr. DeSantis and his allies violated the company's First Amendment rights through a special tax district to take over that includes Walt. Disney World.

Disney said it planned to appeal the ruling.

Disney and Mr. DeSantis, who recently ended his campaign for president, have been at odds for nearly two years over Disney World, the 25,000-acre theme park and resort complex south of Orlando. Angered by Disney's criticism of a Florida education law that opponents called anti-gay — and seizing the opportunity to score political points with supporters — Mr. DeSantis took over the tax district, appointed a new board and ended the already the company's long-standing ability to govern Disney World itself as if it were a province.

Before the takeover took effect, however, Disney signed contracts – quietly, but at publicly announced meetings – to lock in development plans worth some $17 billion over the next decade. An attempt by Mr. DeSantis and his allies to void the contracts resulted in dueling lawsuits, with Disney suing Mr. DeSantis and the tax district in federal court and the new appointees returning fire in state court.

On Wednesday, Judge Allen Winsor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee dismissed the federal case in its entirety.

“It is settled law that 'when a statue is constitutional on its face, a plaintiff cannot challenge freedom of speech by alleging that the legislatures who adopted it acted for a constitutionally impermissible purpose,'” Judge Winsor wrote in his statement. Simply put, Judge Winsor ruled that the law that gave Mr. DeSantis control of the special tax district was written in such a way that Disney could not seek retaliation on its face, especially since Disney was not the only landowner affected.

Judge Winsor wrote that Disney “bears the brunt of the harm” from the law, but not all of it. “There is no 'close enough' exception.”

In a statement, Disney said: “This is an important case with serious consequences for the rule of law, and it will not end here. If left unchallenged, this would set a dangerous precedent and give states the freedom to weaponize their official powers to punish the expression of political views with which they disagree.”

Forgive Florida voters for feeling a little whiplash.

Gov. Ron DeSantis seemed unstoppable at the end of 2022. He had just won reelection, beating his opponent by nearly 20 percentage points in a victory largely attributed to voters rewarding him for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

But this week he exited the Republican presidential race after a single contest in Iowa, where he suffered a blow of his own, losing to former President Donald J. Trump by about 30 points.

It was a remarkable outburst for a man who has pushed the limits of his executive power to transform Florida into a cradle of right-wing policies, drawing strong opinions everywhere.

“I thought he was going to go all the way,” said Taylor Brame, 24, who moved to Florida in part because she was a fan of Mr. DeSantis’ minimal restrictions during the pandemic.

She moved from Seattle two and a half years ago because Florida was “open for business,” she recalled Monday at a park across the Gulf of Mexico in Dunedin, Mr. DeSantis' hometown near Tampa.

“I moved across the country for him,” said Ms. Brame, a registered Republican. “I'm a little sad that he's retired.”

Outside a pizzeria on Main Street, Paul Starrett, 69, wore a red Trump hat and expressed enthusiasm for Mr. DeSantis' leadership.

“I don't think it's Ron's time yet,” Mr. Starrett said. “He's such a great governor, in my opinion, that I wouldn't want to see him leave just yet.”

Although Mr. DeSantis has spent much of the past year traveling and campaigning outside the state, his sweeping policies have touched many corners of Floridians' lives, causing supporters to welcome his return to day-to-day government and critics to worry made on what issues the term-limited governor could address in his final three years.

“He's the kind of politician who stands up for himself — he doesn't listen to us,” said Jamie Maniscalco, 33, a registered Democrat who moved to Hollywood, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale, from Virginia in 2019. books, that's what they are ban dictionaries at school, and now his Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate are trying to ban abortion care entirely.”

Ms. Maniscalco helped gather signatures for a ballot measure that would again allow abortions up to 24 weeks' gestation in the state, she said. Mr. DeSantis signed legislation banning abortion after 15 weeks and then after 6 weeks. (The six-week ban is not yet in effect.)

“I can't be a Floridian much longer,” Ms. Maniscalco said. “I'm engaged and thinking about having children, but it won't be in this state.”

She and others, including some voters who support the governor, said Florida had become too expensive because housing and food prices, rents and property insurance had all risen during Mr. DeSantis' term. Last fall, several Florida cities had some of the highest inflation rates in the country.

John Scovill, 56, a chef who has lived in Dunedin since 1990, ruefully pointed to something Mr. DeSantis bragged about during his campaign: the influx of residents from other states during the pandemic.

“He flooded people into Florida, raising our rent, raising food and inflating property values,” said Mr. Scovill, an unaffiliated voter. “It makes it harder for people to live here now.”

His rent in downtown Dunedin, a once sleepy town now bustling this time of year with part-time residents known as snowbirds, used to be $950 a month. He moved and the same unit now rents for $1,800, he said.

Rick Reikenis, a 71-year-old engineer and registered Democrat who works in West Palm Beach, said Mr. DeSantis had ignored important issues in Florida and instead done things intended to help his presidential campaign, such as flying in migrants to Martha's Vineyard from Texas. creating an office to investigate alleged election crimes and signing anti-LGBTQ legislation.

“Much more attention should have been paid to the insurance crisis than to the presidential bid,” Mr. Reikenis said.

“Ron DeSantis won by a wide margin,” he added, referring to the 2022 gubernatorial race, “but I don't think he's popular.”

Polls in Florida have shown that Mr. DeSantis' approval has fallen since he entered the presidential race last spring.

Still, Steve McGuire, 44, a registered Republican in Naples, said he hoped Mr. DeSantis would stick to the policies that make the state so attractive to him: the lack of a state income tax, the taxpayer-funded school voucher programs that allow his wife, Jennifer, to homeschool their two teenage children, and policies they say give Floridians more freedom than people living elsewhere.

“I would have been proud to have him as president,” Jennifer McGuire, 41, said of Mr. DeSantis. “But we're happy he's here.”

At East Naples Community Park — home of the U.S. Open Pickleball Championships — Clare Schroeder, 70, an unaffiliated voter, called Mr. DeSantis' election “ego-driven and a long shot at best.”

He passed laws to endear himself to right-wing voters at the expense of Florida residents, she said, citing legislation that led to a book ban in public schools. “We are causing a greater level of ignorance among children than ever before,” she said.

Ms. Schroeder said she hoped Mr. DeSantis would recognize that his approach was not working and move closer to the middle of the political spectrum.

“I'm not asking him to become Gavin Newsom,” she said, referring to California's Democratic governor. “I ask him to be more in line with more people's beliefs.”

Reporting was contributed by Valerie Crowder from Tallahassee, Nichole Manna from jacksonville, Jane Musgrave of West Palm Beach, and Veronica Zaragovia from Miami Beach and Doral, Florida. Kitty Bennett research contributed.

Forgive Florida voters for feeling a little whiplash.

Gov. Ron DeSantis seemed unstoppable at the end of 2022. He had just won reelection, beating his opponent by nearly 20 percentage points in a victory largely attributed to voters rewarding him for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

But this week he exited the Republican presidential race after a single contest in Iowa, where he suffered a blow of his own, losing to former President Donald J. Trump by about 30 points.

It was a remarkable outburst for a man who has pushed the limits of his executive power to transform Florida into a cradle of right-wing policies, drawing strong opinions everywhere.

“I thought he was going to go all the way,” said Taylor Brame, 24, who moved to Florida in part because she was a fan of Mr. DeSantis’ minimal restrictions during the pandemic.

She moved from Seattle two and a half years ago because Florida was “open for business,” she recalled Monday at a park across the Gulf of Mexico in Dunedin, Mr. DeSantis' hometown near Tampa.

“I moved across the country for him,” said Ms. Brame, a registered Republican. “I'm a little sad that he's retired.”

Outside a pizzeria on Main Street, Paul Starrett, 69, wore a red Trump hat and expressed enthusiasm for Mr. DeSantis' leadership.

“I don't think it's Ron's time yet,” Mr. Starrett said. “He's such a great governor, in my opinion, that I wouldn't want to see him leave just yet.”

Although Mr. DeSantis has spent much of the past year traveling and campaigning outside the state, his sweeping policies have touched many corners of Floridians' lives, causing supporters to welcome his return to day-to-day government and critics to worry made on what issues the term-limited governor could address in his final three years.

“He's the kind of politician who stands up for himself — he doesn't listen to us,” said Jamie Maniscalco, 33, a registered Democrat who moved to Hollywood, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale, from Virginia in 2019. books, that's what they are ban dictionaries at school, and now his Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate are trying to ban abortion care entirely.”

Ms. Maniscalco helped gather signatures for a ballot measure that would again allow abortions up to 24 weeks' gestation in the state, she said. Mr. DeSantis signed legislation banning abortion after 15 weeks and then after 6 weeks. (The six-week ban is not yet in effect.)

“I can't be a Floridian much longer,” Ms. Maniscalco said. “I'm engaged and thinking about having children, but it won't be in this state.”

She and others, including some voters who support the governor, said Florida had become too expensive because housing and food prices, rents and property insurance had all risen during Mr. DeSantis' term. Last fall, several Florida cities had some of the highest inflation rates in the country.

John Scovill, 56, a chef who has lived in Dunedin since 1990, ruefully pointed to something Mr. DeSantis bragged about during his campaign: the influx of residents from other states during the pandemic.

“He flooded people into Florida, raising our rent, raising food and inflating property values,” said Mr. Scovill, an unaffiliated voter. “It makes it harder for people to live here now.”

His rent in downtown Dunedin, a once sleepy town now bustling this time of year with part-time residents known as snowbirds, used to be $950 a month. He moved and the same unit now rents for $1,800, he said.

Rick Reikenis, a 71-year-old engineer and registered Democrat who works in West Palm Beach, said Mr. DeSantis had ignored important issues in Florida and instead done things intended to help his presidential campaign, such as flying in migrants to Martha's Vineyard from Texas. creating an office to investigate alleged election crimes and signing anti-LGBTQ legislation.

“Much more attention should have been paid to the insurance crisis than to the presidential bid,” Mr. Reikenis said.

“Ron DeSantis won by a wide margin,” he added, referring to the 2022 gubernatorial race, “but I don't think he's popular.”

Polls in Florida have shown that Mr. DeSantis' approval has fallen since he entered the presidential race last spring.

Still, Steve McGuire, 44, a registered Republican in Naples, said he hoped Mr. DeSantis would stick to the policies that make the state so attractive to him: the lack of a state income tax, the taxpayer-funded school voucher programs that allow his wife, Jennifer, to homeschool their two teenage children, and policies they say give Floridians more freedom than people living elsewhere.

“I would have been proud to have him as president,” Jennifer McGuire, 41, said of Mr. DeSantis. “But we're happy he's here.”

At East Naples Community Park — home of the U.S. Open Pickleball Championships — Clare Schroeder, 70, an unaffiliated voter, called Mr. DeSantis' election “ego-driven and a long shot at best.”

He passed laws to endear himself to right-wing voters at the expense of Florida residents, she said, citing legislation that led to a book ban in public schools. “We are causing a greater level of ignorance among children than ever before,” she said.

Ms. Schroeder said she hoped Mr. DeSantis would recognize that his approach was not working and move closer to the middle of the political spectrum.

“I'm not asking him to become Gavin Newsom,” she said, referring to California's Democratic governor. “I ask him to be more in line with more people's beliefs.”

Reporting was contributed by Valerie Crowder from Tallahassee, Nichole Manna from jacksonville, Jane Musgrave of West Palm Beach, and Veronica Zaragovia from Miami Beach and Doral, Florida. Kitty Bennett research contributed.

Donald J. Trump plumbed new depths of degradation in his brutal defeat of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a yearslong campaign of emasculation and humiliation that helped push one of the party's rising stars out of the presidential race after just one game forced and left him to his fate. picking up the pieces of his political future.

Before a huge audience, Mr. Trump portrayed Mr. DeSantis as a submissive brat, insisting he had cried and begged “on his knees” for support in Florida's 2018 gubernatorial race.

In a series of sexually charged attacks, Mr. Trump suggested — without evidence — that Mr. DeSantis wore high heels, that he might be homosexual and that he might be a pedophile.

He promised that intense national scrutiny would leave Mr. DeSantis whining for “mama.”

Mr. DeSantis shied away from fighting back, which only hurt his campaign more. The governor had portrayed himself as one of the Republican Party's fiercest political fighters, but he held his own in the most important race of his life.

Now he is both defeated and humiliated. His departure from the race on Sunday was far from falling out of favor after he opened his campaign as heir apparent in a Trumpified Republican Party. Restoring that reputation as he considers his next political move will require a lot of repair work among donors and Republican voters, thanks to Trump's relentless parade of insults over 242 days of his campaign.

“I don't care if he's a Republican,” Mr. Trump said of his disparagement of Mr. DeSantis at a November meeting of the Republican Party of Florida — the governor's home. “We hit him hard, and now he's like a wounded bird falling from the sky.”

But even more crushing was Mr. DeSantis' response, or lack thereof.

After releasing a 2022 campaign video that portrayed him as a political warrior sent from heaven, he seemed unwilling or unable to return to Trump or go on the offensive. Even Trump aides were surprised that DeSantis' campaign didn't attack the former president harder on issues where he could be vulnerable to conservatives, such as abortion.

And the irritable nature of Mr. DeSantis' personality, which could express itself in an uncomfortable mix of detachment, moodiness and facial tics, provided an irresistible target for Mr. Trump, who seemed to delight in bullying Mr. DeSantis as if he a freshman in a locker in high school.

Still, Mr. DeSantis remains popular in his home state, and he is also being watched outside Florida relatively favorable. As a presidential candidate, he had to succeed where every Republican before him had failed: pry loyal Trump supporters away from the former president without alienating them.

Mr. Trump has long pushed the boundaries of accepted political behavior, relentlessly advancing the racist “birther” lie about President Barack Obama and calling on his supporters to jail Hillary Clinton. But his campaign reached new levels of brutality against a fellow Republican.

The missions were often led by Trump's chief spokesman, Steven Cheung, who drew on his background as a PR agent for the Ultimate Fighting Championship to deliver brutal slams with the force of the sport's suffocating guillotine stranglehold.

In November, Mr. Cheung told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. DeSantis would face “unimaginable pain that he has never felt before in his life.”

In a press release, he questioned Mr. DeSantis' masculinity, saying he walked like “a 10-year-old girl who had just raided her mother's closet and discovered heels for the first time.”

Mr. Cheung also called the Florida governor a “desperate eunuch,” wondered why Mr. DeSantis “made a fool of himself” in front of the entire country — sexual jargon that implies weakness in a man — and accused him of to look for “new sugar daddies” to finance his campaign. He called Mr. DeSantis a “disloyal dog.”

Mr. DeSantis fought back with a more traditional approach.

His campaign introduced a “Trump Accident Tracker” in a daily email to the news media highlighting Trump's missteps on the trail. He criticized Trump's “juvenile insults” and said voters didn't like them. (The outburst of laughter at the Trump rallies suggested otherwise.)

Mr. DeSantis ultimately tried to improve his game.

Respond to accusations that he wore raises in his cowboy boots to appear tallerMr. DeSantis questioned Mr. Trump's masculinity.

“If Donald Trump can muster the balls to show up to the debate, I will wear a boot on my head,” Mr. DeSantis said.

The line didn't seem to land. Mr. DeSantis himself has admitted that, unlike Mr. Trump, he is “not an entertainer.”

At the same time, pro-Trump online influencers formed a troll army that pumped out content such as videos showing a man with Mr. DeSantis' face being kicked in the groin. By comparison, Mr. DeSantis' online activities proved woefully inept.

The differing approaches stemmed in part from a fixation on Mr. DeSantis at Trump's headquarters, where hostility toward the governor ran high.

Not only was Mr. Trump outraged by what he saw as a striking lack of loyalty from Mr. DeSantis, but the Trump campaign also includes former DeSantis campaign aides who were fired or otherwise felt mistreated by the Florida governor, including Susie Wiles. from the former president's closest confidantes. Many still had an ax to grind.

“Bye bye,” Ms. Wiles posted on social media on Sunday about her former boss, who had tried to ban her from Republican politics.

Mr. DeSantis' quick approval on Sunday could help heal some of those wounds. Hours later, Mr. Trump vowed to retire the “DeSanctimonious” nickname, and his allies began posting messages welcoming Mr. DeSantis to Trump's return.

But aides said Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis still had not spoken.

Asked whether the two men could mend their relationship, Mr Cheung held his fire.

“We are focusing on New Hampshire,” he said.

Ken Bensinger contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

Ron DeSantis entered the 2024 campaign as a formidable candidate, with early polls rivaling or even surpassing those of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

Ultimately, that early strength just meant he had more room to fall.

There are myriad reasons why Mr. DeSantis fell apart and ultimately ended his campaign on Sunday — including that his opponent once again proved to be a juggernaut. Perhaps Mr. DeSantis could have won the nomination in most other years if he had not been running against a former president.

But rather than dwell on his losing campaign, it's worth returning to his apparent strength from the beginning — that brief moment when Mr. DeSantis, or at least the idea of Mr. DeSantis, routinely led Mr. Trump in high-quality head-to-head polls.

In the eight years since Donald J. Trump won the Republican nomination, this was the only moment when Republican voters seemed willing to move in a different direction. Mr. DeSantis did not take advantage of this moment, but nevertheless it is the only glimpse we have had of the post-Trump Republican Party. We saw something that could make this happen, and we saw what it could look like.

What accomplished it: The midterm elections

Over the past eight years, Mr. Trump has said and done countless things that could have brought down any other politician. He has been impeached twice. He encouraged what culminated in the January 6 riot. He has been charged with multiple federal crimes. None of this really made any difference in his support.

That is, until November 2022. The Republicans' disappointing results in the midterm elections damaged Trump in the polls, and DeSantis opened up a clear lead in head-to-head elections that lasted for months.

Before the 2022 midterm elections, it would have been difficult to predict that this would be the event that would put Trump at a disadvantage. But it was, and it's worth noting at least a few things that may have helped make the post-medium term period different:

• The attacks came not from liberals, but from conservative elites and conservative media.

• The midterm elections made Trump look weak and a loser. Unlike in the 2020 election, Republicans admitted defeat. Mr. Trump himself acknowledged that the midterm elections were disappointing. This time there were no alternative facts.

• The midterm elections allowed Mr. DeSantis, who won by a landslide, to contrast favorably with Mr. Trump without having to attack or attack him directly.

We will never know what would have happened if Mr. DeSantis had acted quickly to take advantage of the opportunity. Instead, he waited months before announcing his candidacy.

What we know is that these favorable conditions did not last long. In late January, Mr. Trump went on the attack against Mr. DeSantis, and he did not back down. Now it was Mr. DeSantis, not Mr. Trump, who looked weak. Instead, Trump's blows came from the criminal justice system, not the right. Conservatives rallied behind him, as they have done time and time again.

The wagons had already circled by the time Mr. DeSantis began attacking Mr. Trump this summer.

What it might have looked like: The imagined DeSantis

Mr Trump triumphed in the 2016 primaries, not least because his opposition was divided.

On his right were orthodox conservatives, such as Ted Cruz, who saw Mr. Trump as a big moneymaker for government and as socially liberal. On his left were the moderate establishment types like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, who opposed Trump on foreign policy, trade and immigration. Together, the two factions had the numbers to defeat Trump, but their deep divisions were irreconcilable.

But late in the 2022 campaign, Mr. DeSantis briefly reneged on a promise to unite moderate and conservative opposition to Mr. Trump around a new set of issues: the coronavirus response and the “woke” left.

It may seem strange to think that these conservative issues could help Mr. DeSantis with moderates, but they were fought on the left of the old culture wars of the 1960s. Conservative donors were adamantly opposed to DEI initiatives as the foundation of the party. In many cases, these conservative causes found qualified support from liberals in defense of free speech on campus, opposition to school closures, skepticism about trans issues, support for colorblindness and merit-based education, and more.

What all these issues had in common was that the left, and especially the academic left, had penetrated far enough to provoke a response. And more than any other politician, Mr. DeSantis was the conservative politician who stood up to that backlash against the “woke” and coronavirus restrictions. The wide range of anti-woke and anti-pandemic politics meant there were many moderates and conservatives who thought they agreed with Mr. DeSantis. They imagined him as a politician much like them, in the same way that both anti-war progressives and centrist Democrats saw themselves in Obama in 2008.

That was not the case. The coalition behind the imagined Mr. DeSantis crumbled.

The new problems did not help him:

• They lost their battle. The pandemic ended. 'Woke' steadily disappeared from the news. The uproar over critical race theory subsided. More traditional issues, including abortion and the border, became more salient.

• The issues did not provide a clear contrast to Mr Trump, who could hardly be derided as “woke” and was not exactly known for his support of Covid-related restrictions.

• The issues dragged Mr. DeSantis into the world of the far-too-online right, leaving his speeches full of arcane acronyms such as ESG and devoid of any coherent, overarching message.

Worse, Mr. DeSantis campaigned as if completely oblivious to the delicate balancing act of coalitions required to defeat Mr. Trump. It's hard to imagine he didn't know — it's exactly what rattled Trump's opponents eight years ago. Yet a major super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis brought in Jeff Roe, the adviser behind Mr. Cruz's losing campaign in 2016. And Mr. DeSantis never appeared to have thrown a bone to the party's establishment Republican wing. He couldn't even be acceptable to moderates in Ukraine, a favorite issue of the neoconservatives who inevitably had to play a role in any anti-Trump coalition.

Instead, Mr. DeSantis offered little contrast with Mr. Trump on these issues. The strategy, known as “Trumpism without Trump,” assumed that Republican voters were willing to part ways with Mr. Trump personally even as they supported his views on the issues. Needless to say, that turned out to be wrong. At the same time, his consistently conservative views on the issues alienated moderates and culminated in the rise of Nikki Haley.

DeSantis would have struggled to maintain an ideologically diverse anti-Trump coalition even if he had been as adroit as Obama in his 2008 victory over Hillary Clinton. The fight against “woke” was not a war in Iraq. National security, abortion, rights and other issues still divide Republicans, as they did in 2016.

But to get a glimpse of what a successful alternative to Trumpism might one day look like, the imagined DeSantis of the early campaign is a good place to start. The backlash against the woke left may have fizzled out, but it is a reminder that campaigning against the excesses of the left has the potential to unite the right while appealing to a pocket of disaffected moderates or even liberals. If these or other new issues overwhelm the old ones, there could suddenly be an opening for conservative politics to look very different.

Former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday thanked Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida for supporting him after suspending his campaign, calling Mr. DeSantis — once a top rival who spent much time bashing Mr. Trump in his speeches — “ ' mentioned.

Speaking to a packed audience at a historic theater in Rochester, N.H., Mr. Trump called Mr. DeSantis' wife, Casey, a “truly wonderful person.” And he said Mr. DeSantis “ran a very good campaign.”

“I'll tell you it's not easy,” Trump said. “They think it's easy to run this stuff, right? It is not easy.”

He continued, “But as you know, he left the campaign trail today at 3 p.m.,” adding, “And on top of that, he was very friendly and supportive, so I appreciate that.”

For months, Trump made attacking DeSantis a central point in his campaign speeches, especially in Iowa. He denounced Mr. DeSantis as disloyal, calling him a bad governor and suggesting he was a political opportunist whose positions had changed when he ran for president.

But after Mr. Trump's dominant victory in the Iowa caucuses, in which Mr. DeSantis finished a distant second, Mr. Trump shifted his focus to Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, who is his closest rival in the New Hampshire primaries. .

In speeches over the past week, Mr. Trump took particular swipes at Mr. DeSantis in casual asides that suggested he was not worth his time.

“You'll notice I haven't mentioned the name Ron DeSanctimonious yet,” Trump said at a rally in Manchester on Saturday, using a mocking name he gave the Florida governor last year. “I think he's gone.”

Sunday may have been the first day in months that Trump did not use that nickname. Earlier in the day, he told supporters at his campaign headquarters in Manchester that he would no longer use that nickname after Mr. DeSantis left the race.

“Should I use the name Ron DeSantimonious?” Mr. Trump said. “I said that name is officially retired.”