One of Ron DeSantis’ theories of the case for his presidential campaign was that he could ride his reputation as a governor who resisted COVID-19 mitigation efforts to victory in the Republican primary contest.
He could draw a contrast with Donald Trump who, as president, presided over such efforts, kept Dr. Anthony Fauci in place, and also launched Operation Warp Speed, which led to the fast development of COVID vaccines.
Ron DeSantis Bucked the Country-Wide Lockdown
DeSantis was counting on Republican voters, skeptical about vaccines and lockdowns of the past, to be motivated by those issues and therefore turn to the Florida governor.
However, that hasn’t happened, and according to a new report, there’s a good reason: COVID policy is simply not a motivating factor at this point for very many voters on the Republican side. And that’s one big reason why DeSantis is way behind.
Rolling Stone this week cited private polling data in noting that COVID policy is now very low on the list of the things that Republican voters are about when it comes to picking a 2024 candidate.
The magazine cited “six different Republican operatives, campaign officials, and pollsters,” some aligned with DeSantis while others aligned with Trump or other candidates.
“Across the board in the surveys, Covid-related policy — including vaccines and vaccine mandates — did not rank as an item of high concern for voters,” Rolling Stone said.”That held true even when voters were specifically given the option of Covid policy when asked about their concerns. Since the middle of last year, Covid-related policy did not show up in conservatives’ top 10, or top 15, issues in any form, leading various campaigns and consultants to declare it, for the most part, unuseful.”
So if you thought the 2024 nomination was going to hinge on when DeSantis closed the beaches, or on which week in 2020 each governor allowed schools to reopen, it appears unlikely that will be the case.
“We don’t agree on much in American politics these days but there’s one thing everyone agrees on: They’re pretty much over talking about or thinking about Covid-19,” GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson said, in the Rolling Stone story.
“So much so that [my firm] barely asks questions about [it] in our research anymore trying to understand the Republican primary electorate. While we know there’s lingering frustration over things like mandates and closures, this pales in comparison to issues like immigration and the economy,” she added.
Ron DeSantis Moving Forward
One would have thought that the 2022 midterm elections would have been the time for the GOP to draw political dividends from COVID dissatisfaction. And while DeSantis won a massive re-election that year, Republicans underperformed across the board. And if COVID wasn’t a motivating factor for voters in 2022, it was highly unlikely that it would be even more of one in 2024.
There’s further reason to come to that conclusion: There are true signs that the pandemic truly is over.
The New York Times reported this week, in a column by David Leonhardt, that the total number of Americans dying each day — known as “excess deaths — is no longer larger than normal. This was achieved through a combination of widespread vaccination, past infection, and effective treatments.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, a former top COVID adviser to President Biden, told the Times. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”
The disease itself is not eradicated, and there are still people who are dying of it.
“Almost a year ago, President Biden angered some public health experts when he declared, ‘The pandemic is over,’ Leonardt writes. “He may have been premature to make that declaration. But the excess-deaths milestone suggests that it’s true now: The pandemic is finally over.”
Author 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.
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