Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) spent considerable time during a recent town hall with CNN haranguing former President Donald Trump, the undisputed leader of the GOP primary field.
DeSantis accused his chief rival of “flip-flopping on the right to life,” blamed him for the Satanic Temple of Iowa’s display at the state Capitol, and blasted Trump over the actions he took to combat the COVID-19 pandemic that indirectly led to the nation’s inflation problems.
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It’s a noticeable shift from earlier this year when the Florida governor was more hesitant to attack the man whose endorsement helped him win his first gubernatorial race. Other rivals, including former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, have somewhat increased their criticism of the former president. Haley subtly attacked Trump for calling Hezbollah “very smart” and slamming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the early days of the Israel-Hamas war. “I will not criticize Israel’s prime minister in the middle of a tragedy and war,” she said in a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s summit in Las Vegas.
Yet the strategy of hammering Trump in the final month before the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses is likely too late to make a sizable impact on Trump’s overwhelming lead.
“It made sense to start attacking him weeks if not months ago. To do so with a month on the clock feels like a futile effort here,” national Republican strategist Brian Seitchik told the Washington Examiner. “To beat Donald Trump, a sustained campaign was required. Somebody, not Chris Christie, going after President Trump on a regular basis could have left a mark. But the fact that we are one month away from judgment day, there just doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to aggressively and cogently build the case against him among voters.”
National polls bear truth to Seitchik’s claims. Trump leads all his rivals at 60.3% in a RealClearPolitics polls average. DeSantis follows in second place at 12.6%, Haley at 12.1%, Vivek Ramaswamy at 4.9%, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 2.9%. Even with all of his rivals’ support combined at 32.5%, Trump still dominates by more than 27 percentage points.
Christie is the only one of Trump’s rivals who remains unrelenting in slamming the ex-president and attacking his rivals for not taking on Trump directly. During the fourth GOP debate earlier this month in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, he repeatedly taunted DeSantis for not answering whether Trump was mentally fit for the White House.
“The question was very direct. Is he fit, or isn’t he?” Christie pushed back against DeSantis after he finished speaking. “The rest of the speech is interesting but completely nonresponsive.”
On Friday, Christie attacked both Haley and DeSantis for attacking each other instead of taking on Trump in a new campaign ad. “There’s only one candidate trying to stop Trump. Chris Christie is the only one who can beat Trump because he’s the only one trying to beat Trump,” said a narrator.
Christie’s attacks have not endeared him to Republican voters, and he barely made the requirements for the fourth GOP debate and faces high disapproval ratings among voters in his party. But as the other candidates now place more focus on Trump, strategists don’t think it will help.
“It probably is too little, too late for the candidates. They’ve had several debates, which were probably the largest stage for them to build contrast between them and Trump, and they’ve chosen largely to sort of make failed attacks, or no attacks at all, or even in the case of Vivek, to express support for the president and his policies,” said Matt Dole, a Republican political consultant based in Ohio.
“Now, I will say that they have to do something, and the best shot at creating contrast and gaining ground is to make those contrast points with the president. So, I understand why they’re doing it, and I think it’s probably wise strategy, but I don’t think it will be ultimately successful,” he added.
Haley and DeSantis have both agreed to participate in a CNN-sponsored town hall in Iowa on Jan. 10, five days before the caucuses. They have called for Trump to participate, but given the former president’s history of skipping all of the four prior debates, it is unlikely he will take the bait.
“As the debate stage continues to shrink, it’s getting harder for Donald Trump to hide,” Haley chided the former president in a statement on Friday.
Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, expressed skepticism that the Iowa debate next month will change the direction of the primary irrespective of how much Trump is lambasted.
“They have not been able to make the case against him in a consistent kind of fundamental way from the get-go. So, I’m a bit skeptical that they’re going to somehow shift the dynamic,” Dallek said. “I think that there are other things that would probably be more likely to shake things up. Like, for example, people dropping out rallying around Nikki Haley.”
DeSantis, unsurprisingly, begs to differ. He claimed during the CNN town hall this week it’s he, not Haley, who can defeat Trump and win next year against President Joe Biden. “I’m confident it’s going to be me because here’s the thing: I’m the only one running that can beat Trump one-on-one,” DeSantis said. “Why? Because the other candidates cannot get enough support from core Republicans and traditional conservatives to be able to go. You can’t just win with a slice of the party. You got to have broad support. We’ll be able to do that going forward.”
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Republican strategists, though, are doubtful any of Trump’s rivals can win the GOP nomination. “I think they are playing for second place, playing for the vice presidential spot if they’re interested in that,” Dole said. “I think Nikki Haley is certainly interested in being the vice presidential nominee. I don’t know that Ron DeSantis would accept that. But at this point, attacking (Trump) doesn’t help in the long term and isn’t effective in the short term.”
Seitchik claimed that none of Trump’s rivals had enough time to blunt Trump’s march to the nomination. “At this point, the only thing that is going to prevent Donald Trump from winning Iowa or New Hampshire is Donald Trump, and there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do that shakes his poll numbers,” Seitchik said.
