The 2024 Republican presidential candidates celebrated 4th of July this week while also appealing to voters. As previously reported, President Donald Trump (R) celebrated Independence Day in South Carolina, releasing an advertisement filmed in Pickens, South Carolina. His political rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), also released an advertisement highlighting that Florida is leading by example. Gov. DeSantis affirmed that Florida is effectively preserving the “sacred fire of liberty.”
Since beginning his gubernatorial reelection campaign, DeSantis has touted Florida’s accomplishments as a playbook that the country should follow. He maintained that Florida was the “freest” state in the country and that his administration fought valiantly to maintain those freedoms. Now, as he undertakes his presidential campaign, the governor is highlighting another responsibility he feels he has.
In a new advertisement, audio from a speech plays over historical footage.
“Florida has led the way in preserving what the father of our country called the sacred fire of liberty,” DeSantis says, going on to mention that this fire “burned in Independence Hall when 56 men pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to establish a new nation conceived in liberty.” Similarly, this fire "burned at a cemetery at Gettysburg when the nation’s first Republican president pledged to this nation a new birth of freedom” as well as burning in other important events such as Dr. Martin Luther King delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech and American soldiers storming Normandy.
DeSantis explains that preserving this fire is something that the American people are tasked with doing because “It is our responsibility to carry this torch.”
He affirms that “we do not run from this responsibility. We carry it.”
The advertisement celebrates July 4th, but it also comes during a time when DeSantis is facing low poll numbers against his political friend turned rival Trump.
