EXCLUSIVE: Ron DeSantis’ book BEATS Obama, Pence and Trump for most first-week copies sold by a contender, as more fans flock to his signings and await his 2024 announcement
- Ron DeSantis sold 94,284 copies of his memoir in the first week of its publication.
- To date, the most copies sold by any potential presidential candidate in recent history
- Barack Obama is in second place, Mike Pence in fourth and Trump in sixth with his 2016 book
Ron DeSantis’ book sales add to his national recognition after he sold more copies of his new memoirs in the first week they hit shelves than Barack Obama and Donald Trump published before their bids for office.
Figures from the book scan shared with DailyMail.com ahead of its public release reveal that DeSantis sold 94,284 copies of The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival in the seven days after it was published on February 28.
The closest second for pre-presidential ad books is more than 27,500 back in sales to DeSantis.
Obama’s 2006 book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream reached 66,766 purchases in its first week of sales.
DeSantis is currently on a tour promoting his book, but many see the campaign-like events as a precursor to a presidential candidacy announcement.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis topped the first week sales charts for a book published by a future presidential candidate before officially announcing his candidacy. Pictured: DeSantis holds his memoir at the final book tour stop in Clearwater, Florida
The stops on DeSantis’s book tour are more reminiscent of presidential campaign rallies. Pictured: DeSantis signs books and takes selfies with attendees at his event in Clearwater, Florida, on Wednesday, March 8, 2023.
Barack Obama’s 2006 book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream garnered 66,766 purchases in the first week of sales, ranking second in sales for a future presidential candidate but trailing 27,500 sales for DeSantis.
Several polls show that he is currently the candidate most likely to be able to beat Trump in the 2024 primaries. And many of these polls even show him beating the former president in a hypothetical heads-up.
Trump’s pre-announcement book Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America published in 2016 generated just 27,686 sales in the first week after its release.
The former president’s book ranks sixth overall compared to first-week sales of other politicians who wrote books before announcing their run for the White House.
He fell behind both former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Unsurprisingly, his books gained huge traction considering they were published after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and following Trump’s 2020 presidential defeat. Many wanted to see if there was any information about the Trump administration revealed in the Pence and Pompeo books.
In Clearwater, Florida, on Wednesday, DeSantis’ staff handed out books to attendees of a rally-like gathering of at least 1,000 supporters who flocked to a venue for line dancing and live music to hear the governor’s speech.
After his remarks, the governor stayed to take selfies with the attendees and sign their copies of his book.
The book tour also took DeSantis to California’s Reagan Library on Sunday and will continue in Iowa and Nevada, both early primary competition states, this week and over the weekend.
Staff handed out copies of DeSantis’ book The Courage to be Free before his remarks to a crowd of about 1,000 supporters.
The Florida plan is what DeSantis is using to design a potential presidential candidate platform. He claims that the way he has ruled in the Sunshine State should be applied nationally and to other states.
Specifically, this references greater freedoms, such as removing remaining COVID-19 restrictions and holding “woke” corporations, entities, and educators accountable for pushing an agenda about children or the public rather than providing intended services.
Remarkably, the third best-selling pre-presidential publication in the first week comes from Ben Carson, whose book A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties sold 37,924 copies in the first week.
Carson served as Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development after gaining little traction in the 2016 Republican primary campaign.
In fourth place in book sales is former Vice President Mike Pence. He achieved nearly 37,600 sales of his 2022 book May God Help Me. Not surprisingly, Pence’s sales were in the top five of possible presidential hopefuls, considering he was second only to one of the most controversial presidents in US history.