Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R-FL) apparent presidential dream is at risk of being dashed before he has even announced a campaign.
DeSantis's trip to Washington, D.C., scheduled to build momentum behind his highly anticipated bid, was roiled by the 2024 Republican nomination front-runner, former President Donald Trump, who earned a tide of endorsements from DeSantis's home state, a watershed moment in the race for their party's nod that has created concerns about the governor's aspirations.
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DeSantis has been demoted during the past six to eight weeks from the "perceived favorite" among Republicans to someone whose shadow campaign is in "a substantial meltdown," according to University of South Florida emeritus government professor Darryl Paulson.
"DeSantis must decide whether to announce his candidacy or renounce his candidacy and say he will serve out his full term as governor and run in 2028," Paulson, who left the Republican Party over Trump, told the Washington Examiner. "If DeSantis cannot stop the rapid downhill course of his campaign, he may have ruined any chance to run in 2024 and even destroyed his chance to run anytime for the presidency."
The super PAC for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, one of the Republican primary's three major declared contenders, made a similar argument, quipping in a Thursday email that DeSantis should complete his second term as governor instead of launching a campaign when Florida's 2023 legislative session concludes next month.
Paulson described DeSantis’s equivocation on Ukraine, woke attacks on Disney, abortion, and book bans, as well as his inability to secure endorsements from Florida's 20-person Republican congressional delegation as "self-inflicted errors" that could "be difficult to reverse."
University of Central Florida politics professor Aubrey Jewett attributed Trump's 22 Florida Republican endorsements to DeSantis's one, his former secretary of state and current Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL), to the ex-president outworking the governor by "aggressively" and "personally" seeking their support.
"Trump can be very persuasive and is a people person, whereas DeSantis is not very good with political interpersonal skills," Jewett said. "Trump has made a lot of congressional connections over the past seven years and made a lot of endorsements and helped with fundraising, while DeSantis never took the time to establish many close relationships during his six years in Congress."
"Although," he added, "this past election cycle DeSantis did get around the country and help some folks raise money and gain votes."
With Trump having an average 29 percentage point polling advantage over DeSantis in early Republican primary surveys, Jewett contended those lawmakers might want to endorse Trump because their constituents are supporting him.
"Lastly, unlike the state legislature where DeSantis seems to have a lot of clout because members fear to cross him," he said, "congressional representatives do not fear DeSantis — particularly when the other choice is Donald Trump, who provides them with a lot of protection from a GOP primary challenge."
Endorsements do not always predict who will become a party's nominee; however, they can indicate momentum, especially after Trump's polling and fundraising spike after his New York indictment for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up extramarital affairs.
"For DeSantis, this is additional pressure for him to get formally into the race," Jewett said. "He, and mostly his surrogates, have been asking GOP members of Congress to hold off on endorsements until the field is more settled, but that clearly is not working."
"The Byron Donalds endorsement was a huge surprise to the DeSantis camp because they felt Donalds was a close ally of DeSantis," he continued, though Rep. Brian Mast's (R-FL) was too. "That has opened the floodgates."
Although Donalds introduced DeSantis at his gubernatorial reelection victory party last year, it was Rep. Greg Steube's (R-FL) endorsement that has underscored the governor's people problems. Steube told Politico that Trump was the first person who phoned him after he was injured in a ladder accident last January and that he only heard from DeSantis's political aide last week — about his 2024 support.
DeSantis's people problems have also been amplified by political consultant Susie Wiles, who advised DeSantis during his 2018 campaign, returning to Trump after the governor questioned her loyalty and tried to prevent her from working in Republican politics again.
Yet DeSantis's trip did not appear to deter Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a potential successor to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who earlier criticized the governor for calling Russia's war in Ukraine "a territorial dispute."
“To me, the most important thing in the 2024 presidential primary is for Republicans to nominate somebody who can win," he told reporters after a DeSantis congressional mixer.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who hosted the DeSantis event with fellow endorsers Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Darin LaHood (R-IL), and Thomas Massie (R-KY) defended the governor as heralding "a new generation into town."
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"It's time to have someone who's not a baby boomer, somebody who can serve for two terms, that we know we can get behind to root out all the corruption in this town and beat the swamp that President Trump so ably started when he came in in 2016," Roy told Fox News.
"Gov. DeSantis has an enormously successful record," he went on. "He just won reelection by a million and a half votes. ... They have massive job growth, [a] great economy. He's taken on the education establishment. He's taken on the corporate establishment with Disney."