Former President Donald Trump’s legal woes and defiant stance against the indictments being sent his way is sucking the oxygen out of the room for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ likely presidential campaign. DeSantis has not declared his candidacy, yet polls show him as Trump’s most potent opponent.
What Should Ron DeSantis Do?
Even so, the Real Clear Politics Average of polls shows Trump leading DeSantis by a 50.8% to a 24.6% margin. Republican donors have been saying privately they think that DeSantis should wait until 2028 because they are not seeing a path to victory for the Florida governor.
“DeSantis has got to be careful not to walk the line on issues,” former North Carolina Gov. Pat McRory told NBC News. “He comes out strong on so many issues, if he starts playing the political game of trying to have it both ways, I think he’ll lose his credibility … I think too many of the Republican presidential candidates are still trying to walk the line of having it both ways, and you can’t do that with Trump.”
The polling trend is decidedly against Ron DeSantis. He lost five points on the RealClearPolitics Average in the past week. Meanwhile, Trump’s numbers have strengthened as sympathy has grown.
DeSantis is not listening.
“We resolve to lead by conviction. Not by polls. I have never take a poll on any of these issues I have championed since I have been governor,” DeSantis said last weekend at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. “I haven’t on Day one and still haven’t until this day.
“A leader doesn’t get in front of polls … We’re going on offense in the state of Florida, and we’re going on offense on Day one.”
Ron DeSantis contends that polls follow the leader. If a leader has a strong vision and delivers then polls change, he said.
“We were able to flip Democrat counties, and urban counties like Miami-Dade County. Not only were we able to win, we were able to win by double-digits,” DeSantis said.
The governor has to tread lightly when it comes to Trump’s legal problems.
“DeSantis is doing a book tour. He’s barnstorming the country, and his polls are going down,” a strategist told NBC News before the indictment was handed down. “Meanwhile, Trump’s potentially under indictment, and Trump’s going up. It’s just not a good look for DeSantis.”
DeSantis Should Stay on Point
He joined in the chorus piling onto Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. DeSantis did not mention Bragg by name at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference; however, he slammed “Soros-backed D.A.s” calling them a “menace to society” because they target their political opponents.
DeSantis’ message to voters, in contrast with Trump, is that he has proven that he can uproot Left-wing political agendas from government bureaucracies to corporate America.
“The Left is trying to impose its agendas through a wide variety of arteries,” DeSantis said. “Woke banking is using the financial might of Wall Street and some of these entities and trying to impose an agenda on you, which could never win at the ballot box.”
Trump was unable to work with more liberal members of the GOP to forge a governing coalition and saw his executive orders swept away as soon as Joe Biden became president. DeSantis’ strongest argument against Trump is that DeSantis would not be distracted by legal shenanigans and that he has shown he can build a formidable governing coalition.
DeSantis has a tough row to hoe against Trump for the Republican nomination; however, he does better in trial heats with Joe Biden than Trump.
“If you’re Ron DeSantis, you’re not going to moderate anything when it comes to independents,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told The Hill. “But you might take a page out of Glenn Youngkin’s book. It’s how you talk about it.”
His polling Among the Independent voters who decide general elections is also more solid; however, Trump’s lock on the Republican electorate makes his path to the GOP nomination in 2024 look bleak for him.
He likely will find an easier path to victory in 2028.
MORE: Is AOC a Sellout?
MORE: Hunter Biden Has a Big China Problem
MORE: Kamala Harris ‘Seems to Be An Albatross’
MORE: Pete Buttigieg: Running for President?
John Rossomando is a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award in 2008 for his reporting.
