If DeSantis gets in, his first task will be stopping the polling slide
Haisten Willis
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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has yet to enter the 2024 presidential contest, but polling indicates he’ll have a tough task ahead should he choose to do so.
DeSantis has seen his support plummet in recent weeks amid an onslaught of criticism from former President Donald Trump, who is trying to declare the contest over and pivot toward the general election.
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“I see that everybody is talking about the Republican Debates, but nobody got my approval, or the approval of the Trump Campaign, before announcing them,” Trump wrote in a recent Truth Social post. “When you’re leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers, and you have hostile Networks with angry, TRUMP & MAGA-hating anchors asking the ‘questions,’ why subject yourself to being libeled and abused?”
Skipping debates is a common tactic for incumbents, who don’t want to be seen on an equal footing with their challengers. President Joe Biden is trying the same thing against his token Democratic primary opponents.
However, DeSantis’s backers and veteran political observers say it’s far too early to count anyone out of the GOP primary, much less the second-ranked candidate before he even enters the race.
“Ron is doing well before having announced because of his aggressive and ambitious legislative session,” Ready for Ron Executive Director Gabriel Llanes said. “He’s gotten a lot of things through. It was one of the most productive legislative sessions in Florida history.”
Along with conservative policies like a six-week abortion ban and constitutional carry, the Florida legislature helped the governor by altering a bill that would’ve required him to resign from the office in order to seek the presidency.
With that obstacle removed, and the legislative session now over, the stage is set for DeSantis to enter.
Llanes would like to see DeSantis join the race by mid-June, stressing that it’s incredibly early and, thus, there is no need to rush.
But John Thomas, founder of the Ron to the Rescue PAC, thinks DeSantis should announce “yesterday.”
“The moment is slipping away,” he said. “I don’t think it’s gone, but any further delay would be a mistake.”
At the end of February, DeSantis trailed Trump by 12.8% in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. That gap has more than doubled to 29.2 points amid Trump’s New York indictment and other candidates piling into the contest.
Thomas says DeSantis needs to declare and then shift toward a broad economic and public safety message to expand out from the culture war issues he’s known for.
“DeSantis’s core argument over Trump is that he’s more marketable in a general election,” Thomas said. “Culture wars are a great primary message, but it’s not a credible argument to say you’ll ride all the way to the White House on culture wars.”
Even Biden himself poked fun at DeSantis as a culture war maven during last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
“After his reelection as governor, [DeSantis] was asked if he had a mandate,” Biden quipped during the black tie event. “He said, ‘Hell no. I’m straight.'”
The GOP electorate will decide which flavor they like better. The biggest policy divide between Trump and DeSantis may be on the issue of abortion, which Trump has shied away from discussing while DeSantis signed a six-week ban into law.
Despite his sizable lead and the initial bump his indictment afforded, Trump could still find himself hampered both personally and professionally by legal troubles. In addition to the New York case, he’s facing a case related to the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, a special counsel investigating his mishandling of classified documents, and a separate special counsel related to the 2020 election.
The electorate could grow weary of all the legal headaches, but those cases could also make it more difficult for him to campaign. Sasha Tirador, a Florida-based Democratic strategist, predicts that GOP voters will be wary of the courtroom sideshow and eventually nominate DeSantis instead.
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For now, it’s just too early to tell. Political observers point to candidates like the late John McCain, who overcame early front-runner Rudy Giuliani to secure the GOP nomination in 2008, or even Biden, who struggled in early 2020 before surging ahead following the South Carolina primary.
“We’ve seen people come from behind with weaker poll numbers than DeSantis and end up winning,” said Florida Atlantic University political professor Kevin Wagner. “Sometimes we play into the moment instead of looking at the longer pathway. It’s a long journey to the nomination.”