No two ways about it, things look grim for Ron DeSantis right now. He stumbled out of the gate with the technical snafu with Elon Musk, and since formally announcing his presidential campaign, he’s only slid in the polls. One new poll in New Hampshire has DeSantis running third, behind Chris Christie. In recent weeks the Florida governor has pulled the trigger on several reboots, changing and cutting campaign staff. There are doubts about his charisma, and a lot more speculation that his landslide reelection win in 2022 reflected the weakness of his opponent Charlie Crist more than his own strengths as a candidate.
A few years back, DeSantis selected the former director of the Tim Tebow Foundation to head up the Florida Faith-Based and Community-Based Advisory Council. Now DeSantis is getting his own unwanted comparisons to Tim Tebow, with worries that he’s another Florida phenomenon who couldn’t achieve the same success at the next level.
So why should anybody have any faith left in DeSantis and his campaign?
For starters, as the first debate approaches, there’s little sign that any other alternative to Trump has caught fire. DeSantis has had about as rough a debut couple months as his rivals could hope for, but there are few signs that any of the other non-Trump rivals have benefited from DeSantis’ stumbles. Maybe Vivek Ramaswamy can argue he’s gained some traction, but that mostly means he’s climbed from the low single digits to the higher single digits. Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie – so far, they’re all down in the same neighborhood.
A political columnist isn’t supposed to admit this sort of thing, but this is the GOP primary where nothing much is changing, at least so far.
As Dan McLaughlin observed, progressive pro-choice and LGBTQ protesters were particularly focused on DeSantis at the Iowa State Fair this past weekend. DeSantis doesn’t have dramatically different positions on abortion or gay rights from any of the other GOP candidates; the protesters focused on DeSantis “because he’s worth attacking,” as McLaughlin put it. The rest of the GOP field has yet to matter in the broader national debate.
Imagine being a progressive activist and boasting to your peers, “yeah, I really showed Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson what I think of them.”
And the longer Trump’s large lead continues, the more the perception will take root that the former president’s nomination was never really in doubt. This wasn’t a case of DeSantis failing to close the sale; this was a case of the customer having their mind adamantly set on one particular option and refusing to consider any substitutes. Again – so far, no one else is closing the sale on nominating someone besides Trump; it’s fair to ask how hard some of the other GOP candidates are trying.
And if that’s the true read of the situation, that Trump’s renomination even after January 6 and multiple indictments, then DeSantis really doesn’t have much to lose. He might as well swing for the fences. Trump has made abundantly clear that he believes the 2024 nomination was always reserved for him alone, and that all other Republicans were making an enormously disrespectful insult by even contemplating a run for the nomination. DeSantis will be on Trump’s enemies list for the rest of Trump’s days. If it can’t get much worse, DeSantis might as well take the hardest swing at Trump that he can. And, as always, if you come at the king, you had better not miss.
The primary is approaching two key moments. The first debate will be a key moment for DeSantis, and perhaps it will be to the Florida governor’s advantage to not have Trump on stage, consuming all the oxygen in the room. And then, at some point in this primary process, DeSantis and Trump will be on the same stage; it’s hard to envision Trump staying off the debate stage throughout the primary. An in-person verbal confrontation is inevitable.
There’s one other aspect of this battle worth watching. Donald Trump didn’t show up for Family Leadership summit in Des Moines in July. Trump barely stayed two hours at the Iowa State Fair. Trump says he won’t appear at the first debate, and may not appear at any of them.
Trump can no doubt schedule a rally and have thousands of diehard fans show up, but Trump has chosen to host just six of those raucous events so far this year –Davenport, Iowa and Waco, Texas in March, Manchester New Hampshire in April; Pickens, South Carolina, Council Bluffs Iowa, and Erie, Pa. in July. Remember, Trump declared his candidacy last November.
By contrast, from mid-June until the end of September in 2015, Trump appeared at 13 rallies.
Trump wants to be the Republican nominee again, but he doesn’t want to do all that much to get it. And so far, he hasn’t had to; enough Republicans want to hand him the nomination, no effort required. In 2015, when Trump began running for president, he had just turned 69. He turned 77 in June. Perhaps Trump’s skipped events, lighter schedule and reduced travel schedule reflects, as he once said of Jeb Bush, “low energy.”
DeSantis is up against a twice-impeached, three-times indicted, famously erratic and self-destructive guy who lost to the current president. And yet somehow, in the modern GOP, persuading a majority of Republican primary voters to consider another option has turned into Mission: Impossible.