Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has yet to announce his presumed bid for the White House, but former President Donald Trump is beating him in the polls, anyway. Following a spate of all-too-early analyses in which DeSantis fared well against the former president in terms of voter support, the governor now appears to be lagging significantly, with multiple surveys — including FiveThirtyEight's newly-launched national polling average — showing him at least 10 percentage points behind the man who would most likely be his biggest competition.
Though initially bolstered by a decisive midterms victory as well as his handling of certain cultural issues like education and critical race theory — kindling for the GOP base — DeSantis' momentum has been presumably stunted by, among other things, a stretch of damaging headlines. This includes a tussle with Disney and a six-week abortion ban, as well as an unwillingness to hit back at the now-indicted former president who, as The Week's Rafi Schwartz observes, has "no shame, no restraint, and everything to lose."
What are the commentators saying?
While Trump has been building interpersonal relationships with elected officials for months, reports suggest that "DeSantis has struggled" to do the same, "especially in small-group settings with other politicians and donors," Isaac Chotiner writes for The New Yorker. "I don't know that [DeSantis] has the personal touch that perhaps Donald Trump has or that I understand his wife, Mrs. DeSantis, has," Texas Republican Rep. Lance Gooden, who officially backed Trump in April, told Chotiner. "He has certainly been very late to the game. He probably should have come to Washington and started requesting meetings with members eight to ten months ago." That deficit has spread to the governor's home state, where Trump has "notched the support of at least half of Florida's Republican House delegation, including a handful of members whom DeSantis' team had sought to win over," Max Greenwood and Brett Samuels note for The Hill. While the governor's team has only just now begun to contact certain members of Congress, Trump himself has "maintained an open line of communication" with the officials he's now angling to recruit onto his side. "He does not act like a king. He acts like your friend, your father, your grandfather," Gooden said of the former president, speaking with Chotiner. "The DeSantis orbit gave me flashbacks to when I was a state legislator, and the Rick Perry ensemble of protectors and higher-ups felt a bit exclusive."
Moreover, DeSantis seems to have a likeability problem on his hands ... literally. Anecdotes suggest he's not nearly as personable or charismatic as the former president, and that he maybe, possibly, ate pudding with his fingers. He was supposed to be Trump "without the baggage," writes Stuart Rothenberg for Roll Call, but he's now "on a baggage-grabbing spree." He's also not a Star Wars fan, which speaks less to his taste in movies and more to his ability to relate to the average Joe — something Trump, for all his wealth, does surprisingly well. Indeed, while the latter "takes the time to wine, dine and threaten," attorney Lloyd Green says in The Guardian, "DeSantis can't be bothered. Voters in early primary states expect to be stroked or entertained. The governor appears incapable of doing either."
What's next?
If he has any hope of succeeding, DeSantis must really fight back, opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg theorizes for The New York Times. "No one's going to defeat Trump until they stop acting scared of him," and "if Republicans want a non-Trump candidate in 2024, they're going to have to find someone willing to tear him down." Someone willing to play and beat him at his own game, rather than cowering in fear of him and his influence. We'll see if DeSantis, who has thus far stuck to passive-aggressive snipes rather than outright attacks, can do it.
Still, this race has barely begun. "[T]here are plenty of question marks surrounding another Trump bid for president," Rothenberg writes for Roll Call, "and DeSantis — or some other GOP hopeful — may be able to exploit those vulnerabilities." Plus, he has plenty of time to "course correct," Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, told Reuters. Regardless of the skepticism, DeSantis aides told Reuters as recently as April 21 that "he is still going to run" and that he views the former president's attacks "as predictable efforts to [convince] people the race is over" before the governor "announces his candidacy."
