DeSantis Memoir Sells More Copies Than Trump, Obama, Clinton in First Week

AP Photo/Butch Dill

It remains to be seen whether Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) will challenge former President Donald Trump in 2024. But if book sales are any indication of popularity, the Florida governor has a strong base of support for future political ambitions.

DeSantis’s memoir, The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Survival, made it to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list this week. Many have seen the book as a soft launch for a DeSantis 2024 campaign. If that’s the case, the sales bode well: in its first week, Courage to Be Free outpaced books from Trump, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton at this stage of their political careers.

Insider obtained NPD BookScan’s retail numbers, and they reported that The Courage to be Free is up to 94,300 copies sold since being published just over a week ago. By comparison, Trump only sold 27,687 copies of his 2015 campaign book, Crippled America, during its first week.

The numbers put DeSantis ahead of Clinton as well since BookScan says her 2014 memoir Hard Choices came in at 86,200 copies sold in its first week. For former President Obama, The Audacity of Hope sold 67,500 copies in its first week as he was mounting his 2008 campaign for office.

Recent polls show Trump retaining his hold over the Republican Party as he prepares his 2024 campaign. Still, DeSantis has been on a major publicity tour lately to promote his book, and he is commonly thought to be most difficult rival Trump may face in a Republican primary.