Donald Trump is Slipping Against Ron DeSantis: In November 2022, former US President Donald Trump announced he was running for president yet again. This is Trump’s third run. He surprised the political world with his narrow victory in 2016. He ran – and lost – as the incumbent in 2020. He seems determined to unwind that humiliation by running again in 2024. Indeed, he is unwilling to even admit that he lost in 2020.
(Subscribe to 19FortyFive’s New YouTube Channel here.)
In Trump’s last two bids, he sailed to nomination in the Republican primary. His combativeness appealed to a GOP electorate raised on the aggressiveness of Fox News. And the Reaganite message of his competitors was painfully out-of-date.
This time will be tougher though. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis mimics Trump’s winning issues and style but shows greater discipline and focus.
Trump will likely still win, but this will be his hardest race ever. He needs to prove that his 2016 victory was not a one-off fluke and that he can control himself on the campaign trail well enough to beat President Joe Biden who beat him in 2020.
Donald Trump: Was 2016 Was a One-Off?
There is an extensive debate on whether to describe Trump’s initial victory as a fluke (or not).
Donald Trump and his team expected to lose. They ran a bizarre campaign by the traditional standards of American politics. Trump spoke in ways which normally would have pushed a candidate out of the race, most obviously when he admitted to committing sexual assault. Donald Trump eschewed TV advertising, relying instead on TV news coverage of his outrages to gin up media exposure. In 2024, Ron DeSantis will almost certainly learn from this, using his culture war sallies to create similar media exposure.
Donald Trump also won by ignoring the popular vote and focusing solely on the Electoral College. In retrospect, this is mathematically intuitive but felt inappropriate at the time. The Electoral College is a curious American constitutional quirk.
Before Trump, the notion that a presidential candidate would not even try for a popular vote victory was seen as illegitimate. In 2004, for example, President George W. Bush was determined to win the popular vote.
His campaign had lost the popular vote in 2000, winning solely in the Electoral College. Bush and his circle felt a strong need to fully legitimize the contentious 2000 election by winning the popular vote the next time.
Trump ignores this legitimation hankering. In 2020, his campaign basically admitted that a popular vote victory was impossible. Yet abjuring majoritarianism completely is what raises the question of a 2016 as a one-off fluke. Trump did not win the popular vote in either of his elections. Nor has he helped the Republicans in the midterm elections of 2018 and 2022. Trump needs to prove he can win majorities and not just squeak into office via the Electoral College.
Can Trump Show DeSantis’ Discipline?
Trump’s other big problem, already in evidence since his announcement last November, is his inability to focus. In the last ten weeks, he has lost himself in his fight with the government over classified documents at his home, introduced NFT trading cards for sale with images of himself on them, and sought to sue the journalist Robert Woodward. All of these diversions are silly and time-wasting, and the money-making gimmick of Trump trading cards was so tacky and distasteful that even sympathetic right-wing media criticized it as grift.
DeSantis, by contrast, will not make such unforced errors. He has run a tight, focused operation in Florida. He has groomed donors and cultivated links with right-wing media, particularly Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, arguably the arbiters – populist and elite, respectively – of right-wing opinion.
And DeSantis, of course, has none of Trump’s personal baggage. There is no video waiting to be revealed of DeSantis engaging in inappropriate speech or behavior. Nor will he sidetrack his campaign to pursue personal grudges as Trump did in the 2022 midterm election.
Trump will probably still win. Current polling tilts strongly in his favor. That DeSantis mimics so much of Trump’s style, right down to his hand gestures, shows just how much Trump still sets the terms of debate in the Republican party. If GOP voters want the real deal, Trumpism in all its outrageousness – rather than a bland DeSantis knock-off version – Trump will win. And I still think that is the case. But Trump cannot just blunder his way into the presidency this time.
MORE: Could Donald Trump Be Disqualified from Becoming President Again?
MORE: The 1 Way Donald Trump Gets Crushed in 2024
MORE: Joe Biden’s ‘Think Tank’ Was Raided by the FBI
MORE: Could Donald Trump Quit the GOP?
DeSantis knows the game and is a cunning operator. He will give Trump a run for his money, and Trump’s behavior since November does not suggest the seriousness needed to win.
Author Biography and Expertise
Dr. Robert E. Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly; RoberEdwinKelly.com) is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University and 19FortyFive Contributing Editor.
Commentar
February 1, 2023 at 1:45 pm
Trump is finished, just like Biden, who’s destined to kick the bucket anyday now.
Trump could have won in Nov 2020 but he didn’t use his brains.
He could have dug up serious dirt on Biden, like biden’s evil support for Iraq invasion which was wholly based on 935 lies, biden’s racist appeal in 2012 when he alleged that GOP aimed to put people in chains, and biden’s friendship with xi jinping of china.
In 2020, places like NYC saw huge rise in crime and shootings, including police shootings but trump did nothing.
Trump branded the BLM crowd ‘antifa’ thus he waged confrontation with the people.
Trump should have targeted xi jinping for exporting massive opioids to american consumers and hand out arrest warrant for xi, but he was too afraid.
In July 2020, trump closed down the PRC consulate in Houston and said more would be in the line, but he never carried out his promise.
The masses naturally saw trump as unreliable and Biden as the lesser of two evils, even though Biden is the real ? and the current or foremost antichrist from democrat party or fascist party of USA.
Trump had been given his chance or opportunity, but he didn’t use his brains, and he lost to deep state candidate Biden.
Today too late now for trump.Finished.Kaput.Gone case.
James Thalacker
February 1, 2023 at 2:15 pm
The Electoral College is a curious American constitutional quirk??? How’bout “A clever and ingenious mechanism to ensure all states are able to impact an election?
Commentar
February 1, 2023 at 2:19 pm
DeSantis needs to deliver the knockout blow against trump (& other gop pretenders) and then on the main democrat candidates.
He needs to fight crime, including police shootings, fight endless proxy wars abroad, arrest xin jumping and probe Biden family ties to foreign money.
In 2021, police killed or executed 1,145 people in the streets, 1,152 in 2020, mostly due to traffic infractions or confrontations in pedestrian & domestic stops.
Something must be done to stop such gespacho police behavior.
DeSantis also needs to close down all PRC missions and expel all their diplomats, remove US companies like Tesla, HP, FedEx, Walmart from china until xi steps down from power and gets prosecuted for his stirring or central role in the global covid business.
He also needs to withdraw from Syria and stop the aid to the ukro neo-nazis who are Biden’s foot soldiers in Europe, just like how jihadists in Aleppo were Obama’s foot soldiers in the levant.
DeSantis therefore needs to draw up a checklist of everything that must be done to stop all his opponents.
froike
February 1, 2023 at 2:22 pm
Sorry, but I am one of those who believes that POTUS Trump did win in 2020. The Demonratic Saboteurs fixed this election and there is overwhelming proof that this happened. Anyone here see 10000 Mules?
That’s just the tip of The Iceberg.
If we don’t fix the corrupt election process, it doesn’t matter who runs in 2024. That being said, I voted for Trump Twice, but I am very fond of Gov Desantis. I hope that Trump will not try destroy his good name and reputation.
Jack
February 2, 2023 at 7:55 am
Trump is not going to be the next Republican nominee and there is NO guarantee that DeSantis will be either.
Robert
February 2, 2023 at 6:02 pm
I don’t think, at this time that Desantis has a chance against trump. He needs to finish out his term as Governor and then see what’s next.
Anyone who thinks that Trump is toast is seriously misguided and yes he did win in 2020.
Bottom line is Trump’s policies were good for this country and if it wasn’t for the stolen election the US would be by far better off today.