Can Ron DeSantis beat Trump?

The Republican presidential field is more crowded than the Capitol on Jan. 6, yet the only candidates dominating the conversation are Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who announced his long-awaited bid on May 24, and former President Donald Trump, who's made it his personal mission to not only defeat the Republican governor but embarrass him in the process. Though the initial excitement about his run seems to have somewhat faded, does the governor still have what it takes to win the nomination and come out on top? Or is Trump guaranteed to eat his lunch?

What are the polls saying?

Though they were once more evenly matched, Trump has since pulled ahead of Meatball Ron in a big way. In a Quinnipiac University poll released May 24, the former president led the governor 61% to 32% in terms of support among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, a much larger gap than, say, March 29, when Trump saw 47% support and DeSantis saw 33%. As of June 5, the former president was also boasting 53.9% voter support in FiveThirtyEight's updating polling average, far and away the lead contender in an analysis also tracking DeSantis (21.1%), former Vice President Mike Pence (5.4%), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (4.5%), author Vivek Ramaswamy (3.5%), South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (2.1%) and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (0.7%).

What does team DeSantis think?

Though the numbers suggest a different story, DeSantis world is staying calm and insists their candidate nonetheless retains a key advantage in the race: "Everyone knows the majority of the Republican Party wants to move on" from Trump, DeSantis aide Generra Peck told Politico's Jonathan Martin. Indeed, Martin wrote, the "sheer incoming" the governor's team is "fielding from donors, activists and well-wishers tells a very different story from the one that comes with each week's spate of Trump-lead-grows national surveys." Meanwhile, he's also sitting on a reported war chest of at least $110 million, allegedly twice as large as the former president's, per the New York Post. That figure is also from back in April, before DeSantis even opened an official campaign account.

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And if anyone needs an example of the governor's efficiency, his team would direct naysayers to Florida's recent legislative session, during which he pushed the state's Republican-led legislature to a number of culture-war wins, including a six-week abortion ban, an expansion of his infamous so-called "Don't Say Gay" law, and a number of attacks on Disney. Such policies continue to position DeSantis to the right of Trump, which is where pundits suggest he remain to differentiate himself from his party's de facto leader.

What are commentators saying?

"I don't think that [DeSantis is] at all at the point where he can't run a viable campaign," pollster and former GOP political consultant Robert Cahaly told Vox, appearing to rebuff the notion that the governor's bid is DOA. "If this were a ballgame, we're literally just in the first quarter. … I do certainly see momentum with a decent segment of the donor class behind DeSantis."

"He's in a strong position, but he's just going to have to reset and find a new strategy," added former Republican lawmaker Carlos Curbelo. "He did peak early, but he could peak again."

Indeed, added CNN's Harry Enten, "while the numbers don't look great" for DeSantis at the moment, "we don't know what might happen when he hits the campaign trail as a candidate. History does show us that there is time for [him] to mount a comeback." If he can (1) "ensure that more of the party establishment doesn't rally around Trump" and (2) "win in either Iowa or New Hampshire," there is certainly a chance he can pull this off.

But a common theme among those choosing the former president over the current governor is that [DeSantis] is too cold and unwilling to engage in personal politics," said BBC's North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher. "An international trip meant to show [DeSantis] could hold his own on the global stage received lackluster reviews. Some high-profile potential donors have been unimpressed."

"He should be the next generation," Myra Adams, a political strategist, told Zurcher. "He should be the younger, smarter, more nimble Trump. But the numbers just don't speak well for how he's going to overcome Trump."

What is Trump saying?

It's obvious the former president sees "Ron DeSanctimonious" as a threat — he wouldn't be openly attacking him if he didn't. But that scorched earth strategy could end up damaging both candidates down the line if they don't get their acrimony in check. "It's a 15-round boxing match, and when boxers come out pummeling each other from the beginning, they're not pacing themselves for the balance of the match," Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant, told Politico, in reference to the pair's now open sparring. "We're still, what, six to eight weeks from a debate stage when they really can go after each other. When you turn it up to 11 from the beginning, it's hard to de-escalate."

But "[t]his is a war of a certain kind," Trump told journalist Simon Conway, "and what you do is, generally speaking, the person that's in second place, you go after that person as opposed to the person in eighth or ninth place."

Updated June 13, 2023: This piece has been updated throughout.