The Ron DeSantis presidential campaign sure was good while it lasted.
The conventional wisdom has turned so decidedly against the Florida governor that he’s getting buried a couple of months before he even announces.
Rumors of his political death are not just greatly exaggerated they are absurdly overwrought, although that’s what a bout of bad national polling will do.
To listen to the pundits, DeSantis has gone from the political force who steamrolled his way to a historic reelection victory in a large, diverse former swing state to a socially awkward stumblebum who would stay out of the 2024 race if he knew what was good for him.
It’s wrong to characterize the last couple of months as a loss for DeSantis. His book was a success and he’s in the process of racking up an impressive string of victories during the current session of the Florida legislature. But there’s no doubt that he’s hit turbulence. He, in effect, walked back the line in his statement about the Ukraine war, calling the fight with Russia “a territorial dispute,” and he’s never forcefully hit back at Donald Trump, even though the former president has made slamming the governor one of his favorite pastimes.
Trump has taken a jag up in national polling lately, and DeSantis a step down. In the RealClearPolitics national polling average, Trump sits above 50%, a formidable position by any standard. DeSantis is far back at about 24%.
Clearly, some of the shine has come off DeSantis as his reelection win as become more distant, whereas Trump has benefited from getting further away from the debacle of the midterms — and from the free publicity and the GOP sympathy created by the Alvin Bragg indictment.
Still, DeSantis is a strong second in most states, and is well-liked in crucial Iowa. If the Bragg bump wears off over time, and DeSantis gets a bump from his announcement — neither is inevitable, nor is either is far-fetched — it will look like a very competitive race at the top of the field.
In addition to the latest polling, much of the new conventional wisdom about DeSantis is driven by the assumptions that he will never attack Trump and that he will be a poor campaigner. If either is true, he won’t be the nominee. But his SuperPAC is already shooting back at Trump and if DeSantis isn’t a natural backslapper, he didn’t become the twice-elected governor of Florida by spending all of his time alone at home playing Wordle.
What we have definitely learned the last couple of months is that Donald Trump isn’t going to fade away. He is the odds-on favorite to be the Republican nominee a third time in a row, and if he is going to be stopped, someone is going to have to go out and affirmatively beat him. Can DeSantis — or in the right circumstances, someone else — do that?
It’s an enormous task, but the governor shouldn’t be counted out before he’s in.
Rich Lowry is editor in chief of the National Review