Is Ron DeSantis Doomed? What happened? Donald Trump’s indictments have sucked up the media oxygen for his opponents, especially Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Media coverage has focused almost exclusively on the former president. He had been expected to do better against Trump last fell following his blowout win in Florida’s gubernatorial election.
Ron DeSantis In Trouble
His campaign struggled out of the gate with technical difficulties with his Twitter Spaces announcement in May that he was running for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.
The technical glitches showed the governor was not ready for prime time in the minds of many in the pundit class.
He violated a cardinal rule of campaign launches: the need to control the venue and message.
The latest Real Clear Politics Average puts Trump ahead of DeSantis by 39 points, 53% to 20.6%.
DeSantis has failed to resonate due in part to his inability to distinguish the case for his candidacy from that of Trump. The former president’s loyal dominance among Republican voters has left him few places to go.
If Joe Biden and the Democrats thought that indicting Trump would be a good way to rally the Republican base around the former president was the way to go, they’ve been proven correct. Trump has become a political martyr, and DeSantis finds that a major challenge.
Seventy-three percent of Republicans have a favorable view of DeSantis, according to an Economist/YouGov poll.
DeSantis Needs a Message
As long as DeSantis positions himself as the anti-Trump, he is not going anywhere.
He needs a clear message along the lines of he will work to deter China while working to bring peace to Ukraine.
He was criticized for his unfocused response to Tucker Carlson’s question about what he thought about Ukraine.
“I think the goal should be to have sustainable peace in Europe. OK, we don’t want there to be war breaking out. There have been a lot of people who have been killed, displaced. It’s a horrible thing. But you have to provide an articulation of where you’re going to go to get there. My fear right now is they’re basically doing an open-ended conflict. This is going to be a multi-year quagmire. There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to die, and there’s not going to be much facts changed on the ground,” DeSantis said. “We cannot have American troops in Ukraine. That’s a total non-starter.”
Instead, DeSantis should have said China is rising in the East, Ukraine is becoming a quagmire, and that he would use whatever diplomatic and military chips he has to bring peace to the country while stressing that he would do what it takes to contain Vladimir Putin.
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DeSantis Needs to Stress Competency
Many Trump voters say that Ron DeSantis would face the same obstacles that Trump faced after becoming president in 2023. He needs to say what he would do to “Drain the Swamp” as Trump calls it, and make the case to voters that he would do a more effective job than Donald Trump.
He needs a plan for how he would reign in abuses by the FBI, CIA, NSA, and other aspects of the federal bureaucracy that have been weaponized against conservatives.
He needs to stress how he would ensure that Americans are charged for crimes equally across the board instead of in the partisan manner that many Americans see happening today.
DeSantis attempted to address this during his talk with Tucker Carlson, saying he would have a team ready for Senate confirmation on his administration’s first day and that he would only hire people who would not fold under media scrutiny. He would replace FBI Director Christopher Wray on his first day in office.
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“They are all going to rake you over the coals. You are either down for that or not going to be able to handle that, and you don’t have the backbone to do that you will fail at that job,” DeSantis said. “I look at Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court as the example because he doesn’t budge, because he doesn’t care what the media says about him. They’ve smeared him six ways from Sunday. He does what he thinks is right.”
He also needs to distinguish himself from those who used to be called the “Country Club elite” of the Republican Party that favors pro-business policies and is liberal on cultural issues. The Trump camp has been effective at tying DeSantis with people like Karl Rove and Paul Ryan.
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He should be running ads touting his success in Florida and his proven record. That’s his way to win.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst 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, The National Interest, National Review Online, 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 for his reporting.
