Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) appears to be ready to take on the current front-runner in the Republican presidential primary, former President Donald Trump, after a series of campaign staff shake-ups, a strategy "reset" that includes branching out beyond conservative media, and months of hemorrhaging poll numbers.
Republican strategists had long suggested that if DeSantis and any other 2024 rival wanted to win the nomination, they would have to battle it out with Trump as opposed to toeing the line around him. DeSantis looked to have heeded the call and gone on the offense this week during a widely covered interview with NBC News, his first with the network as a presidential candidate.
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The governor rejected Trump's claims that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" during the interview after having spent time in the past skirting around the question. "No, of course he lost," DeSantis said. "Joe Biden is the president." Special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump last week, the third time this year, over his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
DeSantis also criticized Trump for signing the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 bill that passed in 2020 and enabled states to expand mail-in voting, along with reiterating his disdain for Trump's support of Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"But here’s the issue that I think is important for Republican voters to think about: Why did we have all those mail votes? Because Trump turned the government over to Fauci. They embraced lockdowns. They did the CARES Act, which funded mail-in ballots across the country. Donald Trump signed that bill that funded the mail ballots that all the Republicans have been so concerned about," DeSantis said. The governor has frequently touted his defiance of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic as a key factor of his ability to stand up against the Washington "elite."
Jason Roe, a GOP strategist who worked on Sen. Mitt Romney's (R-UT) and Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-FL) presidential campaigns, said that several 2024 rivals are taking a more critical tone toward Trump ahead of the Aug. 23 Republican National Committee primary debate in Milwaukee.
"I think that is in some ways a recognition that what they've been doing has not worked," said Roe. "The conventional wisdom that someone getting indicted should undermine their candidacy has strengthened his, and so I think there's probably a recognition that the wait-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop strategy just isn't working and the numbers are not moving."
The former president dominates all other Republican presidential candidates, according to national and state polls. A RealClearPolitics polling average showed Trump receiving 53.9% support of GOP primary voters, while DeSantis is at 15.9% and all other rivals poll in the single digits.
"As long as [Trump] is sucking up all the oxygen, you've got two choices. You can stand and watch, or you can get in the ring, and I think DeSantis has decided to get in the ring," Roe added. "What [DeSantis] has been doing has not been working, and so a change in tone and maybe demonstrating that Trumpian pugilism might be a better route than pretending he's not there."
The DeSantis campaign told the Washington Examiner that the more aggressive break with Trump isn't a new phenomenon for the governor.
"In his 90+ media hits since entering the race, the governor has never held back from drawing distinctions between his record and Trump's. Ron DeSantis stood against the lockdowns. Ron DeSantis is against massive government spending. Ron DeSantis would've fired Anthony Fauci. And Ron DeSantis will build the border wall and empower American border agents to enforce our immigration laws," said Bryan Griffin, press secretary for the campaign, in a statement. "This primary is a two-man race between Governor DeSantis and a man running in 2024 on the things he promised to do in 2016 and failed to do. Governor DeSantis is the only candidate in the race who can beat Joe Biden and implement the agenda we need to reverse this country's decline and revive its future."
Trump and his campaign leaders, however, have not been impressed with DeSantis's recent willingness to challenge the former president so publicly. "I’m not so sure DeSantis firing his campaign manager in the middle of a death spiral can be considered 'going on offense,'" Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. "But I’m sure that’s what the DeSantis team says to themselves in the mirror every morning."
At a campaign rally in Windham, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, Trump repeatedly referred to the governor by derogatory nicknames such as "Ron DeSanctus" or "Ron DeSanctimonius" and once again referred to him as a "son of a b****" because the governor decided to run for president.
In the midst of the back-and-forth, DeSantis announced a third campaign shake-up in recent weeks. James Uthmeier, his gubernatorial chief of staff, is replacing embattled Generra Peck as the campaign manager. Peck will move into a new role as chief strategist. David Polyansky, a staffer with the DeSantis-affiliated super PAC Never Back Down, is joining the campaign as co-deputy campaign manager. Ethan Eilon was promoted to deputy campaign manager last month from his previous role as digital director.
"I think the changes they made, I have optimism about. I think those changes should have been made some time ago," said Roe, who then offered a word of caution. "The new guy doesn't have much national experience either, and he comes from the trusted inner circle, and I think that's one of DeSantis's biggest problems in a national campaign is that he is not expanding the circle of people with experience in presidential campaigns to run a national campaign."
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Despite the recent DeSantis turmoil, Never Back Down continues to advocate on his behalf in the crucial early nominating states that he will have to win in order to have a viable shot of wrestling the nomination away from Trump.
“Never Back Down has knocked over a million doors across the country, collected over 10,000 Iowa caucus commitments, and is hosting events for Governor Ron DeSantis, including a bus tour across all 99 counties in Iowa, to help elect him the next President and send Joe Biden back to his basement," said the group's spokeswoman Jess Szymanski in a statement. "We’ve also run nationwide and primary state-specific ads highlighting the Governor’s story of commitment to country and family, and will continue our efforts to showcase his forward-looking vision to save our country.”