As Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) gears up for his long-awaited presidential campaign launch, he’s been increasing his visits to the early-voting nominating states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, meeting with voters, and attempting to soften his image among Republicans.
It’s a tacit acknowledgment of former President Donald Trump‘s relentless attacks against DeSantis’s persona and public griping from fellow Republican lawmakers that the governor needs to beef up his people skills if he wants to defeat Trump in the battle for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination.
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DeSantis has taken notice by holding impromptu meet-and-greets during an Iowa stop, in which 200 people came to hear him speak, and flipping burgers with Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA) and Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) this month. Last week, DeSantis was literally kissing babies and visiting diners in New Hampshire. But will it be enough to help the governor convince GOP voters to select him as their next presidential nominee? It’s complicated. Strategists told the Washington Examiner that DeSantis’s uphill climb is tangled by Trump’s effectiveness as a third-time presidential candidate and his dominance over the Republican base.
“He’s never going to be as charismatic as Donald Trump, who can go up on stage and at a rally with thousands of people and hold court for 45 or 50 minutes without a script,” Matt Dole, a Republican political consultant based in Ohio, said of DeSantis. “That’s Donald Trump. That’s not Ron DeSantis. But DeSantis can bring what we all liked about Trump’s policies and governance and not have the back end, which is, you know, the Twitter and all of that.”
Although Trump consistently leads polling of Republican primary voters, DeSantis has also consistently finished in the second spot and, in some polls, has been shown to win over President Joe Biden in battleground states. Yet attacks from Trump and his campaign have led to a decrease in DeSantis’s poll numbers, and more Republicans, such as Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), have launched presidential campaigns suggesting that DeSantis’s attempts to be the anti-Trump candidate aren’t quite guaranteed.
Make America Great Again Inc., a Trump-supporting super PAC, gleefully boasted last week that the rising number of GOP 2024 candidates “smell Ron DeSantis’s blood in the water and no longer see him as an obstacle.”
Ford O’Connell, a Florida-based GOP strategist, said that retail politics isn’t DeSantis’s real problem as a candidate. It’s the scrutiny that comes with being a front-runner running against an extremely agile Trump on the national stage that has tripped DeSantis up at times. “Trump is zigging and zagging while DeSantis is trying to catch up, and it’s a massive primary hole,” said O’Connell. “It’s one he can overcome. He’s got to do the little things right. But he’s going to have to certainly win Iowa or he’s going to be a flash in the pan.”
Trump has made surprising decisions during this third time seeking the presidency that has paid off at times. He sat for a live CNN town hall with host Kaitlan Collins, his first with the network since 2016, which his campaign saw as a success. The audience often clapped for Trump as he jostled with Collins and gave him access to a more mainstream audience. Another sign of Trump’s prowess is his dominance of endorsements from Florida’s congressional delegation, seen as an embarrassment in DeSantis’s own backyard.
But DeSantis has rallied back with endorsements from 37 Republicans in Iowa’s state legislature, more than any Republican candidate had in 2016, and touted the endorsements of 99 Florida state lawmakers, the vast majority of the state’s 113 Republican lawmakers. He also has the endorsement of 51 New Hampshire legislators.
Yet in order to have a credible chance at taking down Trump, DeSantis will need a decisive win in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation GOP caucuses next year. Never Back Down, the DeSantis-sanctioned super PAC, is ramping up staffing in the Hawkeye State and has already poured millions in ad buys championing the Florida governor’s record.
“As we saw at his recent visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, the momentum behind Gov. DeSantis continues to grow as more voters meet him and learn his story of service to country, faith, and family,” said Erin Perrine, Never Back Down’s communications director, in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Conservatives across the country are rallying behind the Governor, already making this primary a two-man race, while DeSantis isn’t even a candidate because they know he is the only Republican who doesn’t just talk the talk, he follows through on the hard fights like taking on woke corporations. Not only do voters know DeSantis will beat Joe Biden, but they know DeSantis will always fight for our future.”
Tyler Clark, a Republican consultant at Red Maple Political in New Hampshire, witnessed DeSantis’s interactions with Republicans during the Amos Tuck annual fundraising dinner last month. “I would say he did a spectacular job. After his speech, he worked that entire crowd of 500 people taking selfies, talking with folks, going table-to-table,” Clark said. “So, I give him 10 out of 10 from what I’ve witnessed firsthand.”
Clark said that the attacks from Trump and his allies’ ads attacking DeSantis demonstrate how much of a strong rival DeSantis is.
“From what I’ve seen here is a lot of Trump people coming out and bashing Gov. DeSantis, and I think it’s because they’re worried. So really, it shows a sign of weakness from the Trump campaign,” Clark said. “I saw that ad about eating pudding with his fingers, and that just seems so bizarre to me. And now all this stuff, saying he has no charisma, is just as false from what I’ve seen.” Clark is referencing a MAGA Inc. ad that attacked DeSantis for allegedly eating pudding with his fingers, according to reporting from the Daily Beast.
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DeSantis has mostly either taken subtle digs at Trump or refused to outright attack the former president in the lead-up to the presidential campaign launch. But Gregg Keller, a Republican consultant based in Missouri, said DeSantis will need to start forcefully pushing back against Trump. Otherwise, Republican primary voters “will abandon him pretty quickly.”
“He cannot allow himself to be seen as some sort of punching bag,” said Keller. “I don’t think primary voters yet believe that he is not a fighter. But I think that’s got to be his No. 1 communication imperative going forward is proving to Republican primary voters that he has the personality and the pugnacity to go out there and fight for them every single day.”
