The Washington Examiner's Julia Johnson said Monday that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is "slightly backing off" from fighting the culture war as he runs for president in the 2024 election, where he is trailing former President Donald Trump in the Republican primary.
Johnson's comment comes amid reports that the Florida governor is in the process of retooling his presidential campaign, laying off more than a third of his campaign staff, including 10 event planning positions. DeSantis has made a name for himself for being one of the few Republican lawmakers to tackle the culture war head-on, including feuding with the Walt Disney Company over Florida legislation.
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"He's not talking about the woke ideology as much as he was initially," said Johnson during an appearance on C-SPAN. "I think what we're starting to see is that he's just slightly backing off on the culture war. He still has strong opinions on the culture issues, and he's not backing away from those opinions, but I think when you hear his rhetoric, he's maybe toning it down just a little bit."
Johnson also discussed Trump's dominance in the Republican primary despite the legal setbacks the former president is facing. Johnson noted that Trump has embraced the fact that he is receiving multiple indictments, and in doing so it has helped his campaign.
"He is receiving a bump in the polls whenever he gets a new target letter or gets new charges or indictments," said Johnson. "Republican voters are very clearly not buying what is being served to them by the Department of Justice. Whether that is legitimate or not, they don‘t believe it is. I mean, a new poll showed about half of Republican voters saying that they didn't even think there are classified documents that were at Mar-a-Lago."
In a new Marquette Law School poll, nearly half of Republicans maintained their support for Trump as the Republican nominee, while DeSantis continued to lose ground in the survey. In May, DeSantis had dropped from 35% to 25%, and in July, he slipped three more points, posting 22%.
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In a general election matchup, President Joe Biden and Trump are tied with 50% each; Biden lost to Trump in the hypothetical in May, posting 47% to Trump's 52%. DeSantis, however, maintained his win over Biden, besting him 51% to 48%, with little change from May.
In a recent analysis from Sabato's Crystal Ball, Trump's share of white-collar or college-educated voters has gone up. The authors at Sabato's Crystal Ball stated earlier this year that any Republican competitor in the primary must consolidate these college-educated voters behind them if they wish to have a shot at beating Trump.