Yes, Ron DeSantis is “way behind”: The Florida governor is far behind President Trump in the polls, and his chances appear to get worse the more he interacts with voters.
Ron DeSantis, a Disaster?
There seems to be little doubt that Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign isn’t going particularly well.
The most recent Morning Consult tracking poll, published June 27, has DeSantis polling at just 19 percent in the Republican contest, in second place but way behind Donald Trump’s 57 percent. DeSantis is closer to the 7 percent number of third place Mike Place, and the fourth place Vivek Ramaswamy than he is to Trump.
DeSantis is the leading second choice among Trump voters, with 42 percent, but he hasn’t broken 50 percent in that metric, either.
This week, Steve Cortes, an official with DeSantis’ Super PAC, confided on a Twitter Spaces that “we are way behind,” as reported by Politico.
“Right now in national polling, we are way behind, I’ll be the first to admit that,” Cortes, a former Trump backer, said on the Space. “I believe in being blunt and honest. It’s an uphill battle but clearly Donald Trump is the runaway frontrunner.”
USA Today wrote this week about DeSantis’ “comeback plan” in the race.
“DeSantis’ efforts include the development of voter turnout operations and a series of policy proposals — including on immigration — designed to draw differences with Trump and his record in the White House. The challenger and his allies are also counting on a series of upcoming debates, though there’s no guarantee that Trump will participate,” the story said.
Trump has been bashing DeSantis since months before he got in the race, and DeSantis and his staffers mostly avoided returning fire until relatively recently.
“Donald Trump has to explain to Republican voters why he didn’t do the things he is now promising in his first term as president,” Press Secretary Bryan Griffin told the newspaper.
DeSantis plans to use the debates, as well as a series of policy plan announcements, to help his standing. But, per USA Today, the Florida governor has not done much to make hay of Trump’s indictments. Like most Republican candidates in this cycle with the exception of Chris Christie, DeSantis seems to have determined that the Republican base believes Trump is being railroaded, and voters will punish them if they criticize Trump for it.
In addition, DeSantis’ wife Casey has been going on the trail without her husband, for a series of “Mammas For DeSantis” events.
“This is a two person race for the nomination between the former president and Ron DeSantis,” said Kristin Davison, chief operating officer of Never Back Down. “Everyone else is fighting among themselves to be a very distant third, or maybe a Sunday show slot, treading water in single digits.“
Also in USA Today Anthony Scaramucci, who had an infamously brief tenure in 2017 as Trump’s White House communications director, ripped DeSantis’ performance on the stump so far.
“He has no retail touch or common appeal,” “The Mooch,” who has endorsed Christie for president, said in the newspaper.
DeSantis also drew fire, over the holiday weekend, for a bizarre video his campaign’s “DeSantis War Room” Twitter account posted, which ripped Trump for pro-LGBTQ policies, before pivoting to images of shirtless men, as well as pop culture characters like “American Psycho” serial killer Patrick Bateman. The New Republic asked if the ad was “the Weirdest Ad in American Political History?,” and ripped it both for homophobia and for seeming to appeal to a small online subculture of 4chan types.
DeSantis, in an interview this week with Tomi Lahren, defended the ad.
“I think identifying Donald Trump as really being a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream where he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants, I think that’s totally fair game because he’s now campaigning saying the opposite, that he doesn’t think that you should have men competing in women’s things like athletics,” the governor said in the interview.
Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
From 19FortyFive
Donald Trump Just Proved How Stupid He Is
