Former President Trump wasted no time attacking Ron DeSantis as technical glitches on Twitter mired the Florida governor’s presidential announcement. President Biden also got in on the action.

NEW YORK — Ron DeSantis' entry into the 2024 White House race against former President Donald Trump sets up a clash of the Republican Party's two leading figures as the Florida governor attempts to topple a man who has dominated the GOP for the last seven years.

Trump, who established himself as the clear front-runner for the Republican nomination, spent the months since he launched his own campaign working to hobble DeSantis, whom he and his team have long viewed as his most serious challenger. DeSantis so far has tried to remain above the fray, ignoring Trump's escalating attacks on everything from his record to his personality.

"The campaign is about to get a lot more intense. He can't just lay low in Tallahassee signing bills," GOP strategist Alex Conant said of DeSantis' strategy. "Now he has to hit the campaign trail, take media questions and punch back at his opponents."

DeSantis, during a series of events Wednesday night launching his campaign, took only veiled swipes at his chief rival without mentioning him by name. It is a strategy reminiscent of 2016, when Republican rivals failed to go after Trump directly for fear of alienating his supporters and assumed — wrongly — he would flame out on his own.

"There is no substitute for victory. We must end the culture of losing that has infected the Republican Party in recent years," DeSantis said on a Twitter Spaces debut plagued by technical difficulties. "We must look forward, not backwards," he added.

In a Fox News interview, he said he believed all candidates should participate in the planned GOP primary debates, which Trump threatened to boycott.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a April 28, 2020, meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

Now that he's officially in the race, DeSantis' well-funded super PAC is poised to intensify its attacks against the former president. His team plans to focus on policy differences between the two Republicans.

"We're going to amplify him and his voice, and when necessary, contrast with the former president. But right now that contrast is really one is lurching left and one is fighting," said David Polyansky, senior adviser to the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down.

DeSantis' team believes Trump is particularly vulnerable with Republican primary voters on abortion. Although the former president appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, he refused to say whether he supports a federal ban on the procedure.

While Trump suggested Republican candidates' hard-line stances led to GOP losses in last fall's midterms, DeSantis leaned in even further on the issue, signing a six-week abortion ban in Florida — before most women know they are pregnant.

DeSantis and his backers must tread carefully: In order to win the nomination, he will need to assemble a coalition that includes both Trump critics and supporters. DeSantis risks alienating a large swath of the party if he goes after Trump too forcefully.

DeSantis' super PAC plans to steer clear of criticism directly related to Trump's many legal entanglements. The Florida governor himself was stung earlier in the spring when he took a swipe at Trump, instead of defending him, following his New York indictment.

Trump, meanwhile, spent months attacking DeSantis, nicknaming him "Ron DeSanctimonious" and subjecting him to a daily onslaught of criticism on his Truth Social app and in ads.

Trump repeatedly called out the Florida governor's votes to cut Social Security and Medicare when he served in Congress, arguing his record will make him unelectable in a general election. He tried to undermine DeSantis' success as governor, claiming Florida was "doing GREAT long before Ron DeSanctus got there." He also pointed to the crime rate in some of the state's large cities and criticized DeSantis' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic — the issue that made DeSantis a conservative star.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks with President Donald Trump on Oct. 16, 2020, at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Fla.

Beyond policy, Trump accused DeSantis of being "disloyal" after Trump helped him win his 2018 gubernatorial primary — and saying he "desperately needs a personality transplant and, to the best of my knowledge, they are not medically available yet."

Trump's allied super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., already spent millions on anti-DeSantis ads and has no plans to change its strategy.

Polls suggest Trump's support has grown since earlier this year, while the appetite for DeSantis as an alternative has faded.

DeSantis' team largely dismisses Trump's early polling advantage given that the Florida governor only just became an official candidate.

Republican donor Dan Eberhart, who donated millions to Trump but is now supporting DeSantis, argued that Trump's continued attacks make clear the former president still sees DeSantis as a threat.

"Trump's fixation with DeSantis is proof that the Florida governor is a serious contender," he wrote in an email. "The former president spent more money attacking Gov. DeSantis before he was even a candidate than Trump did helping Republicans last cycle. Trump's biggest fear just came true."

Some voters have trouble reconciling the feud between two men who were once allies.

Wina Fernandez of Miami said she'd prefer DeSantis and Trump on the same ticket, with DeSantis serving as vice president and then running for president in 2028.

If she had to choose between them, she said, she would choose Trump.

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