LAST UPDATE | 25 May 2023
THE BELEAGUERED SOCIAL media platform, Twitter, has played host to a long-anticipated announcement: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is seeking the 2024 Republican nomination for President of the United States.
The venue raised eyebrows in many quarters, but Twitter boss Elon Musk’s avowed distaste for the “thought police” and restoration of the accounts of far right figures helped make it a natural home for DeSantis to launch his bid.
Looked at another way, even if Musk divides opinion globally and it is tough to conceive of what advantage DeSantis derives from having started his campaign alongside the controversial billionaire, one would have to work hard to not know about the Floridian’s candidacy, such was the extent of the coverage this week.
That said, the conversation between the two was marred by technical glitches. It swiftly degenerated into a topic of derision online. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s team sent a tweet with a mocking caption – “This link works” – that led users to their fundraising webpage.
A Donald Trump spokesperson described the occasion as “a complete failure.”
It was an inauspicious commencement when DeSantis needed to create the maximum possible splash. For in the RealClearPolitics.com aggregation of national opinion survey data, he is an extraordinary 37 percentage points behind Trump, his ex-ally, 56%-19%. That he is languishing so badly is a major surprise to those of us who keep a close eye on US presidential politics.
On the surface, Ron DeSantis would appear to be a highly attractive contender whose ideological disposition and consequent initiatives while in office establish quite patently that he is in tune with the thinking of grassroots Republicans and is comfortable with where the American conservative movement has pivoted.
DeSantis is a 44-year-old, Italian American Catholic with a wife and young family. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, he served in the US Navy before taking a congressional seat representing his home state.
He was elected Governor of Florida in 2018 – by a whisker and with the benefit of an endorsement from then-President Trump – and re-elected in a 60%-40% landslide in 2022.
His 2022 victory was notable and garnered the interest of influential right-wing donors for several reasons. Notwithstanding the facts that Florida has morphed into a “redder” state and that his opponent was weak, it is remarkable that DeSantis won in the Democratic bastions of Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County.
More encouraging, still, were the findings of exit polling which showed that he took 58% of the Latino vote and prevailed among women.
The baseball star at Yale triumphed comprehensively, despite governing unapologetically from the right. DeSantis’s foes would say that his record of accomplishment in office is a reactionary’s wish list.
In Florida, abortion is prohibited after six weeks (with exceptions). Covid-19 mask and vaccine requirements were summarily done away with in contravention of public health advice. Critical race theory cannot be taught in schools. So-called “sanctuary cities” have been eliminated and undocumented immigrants were flown to liberal Massachusetts.
Transgender athletes have been banned from playing sports. Teachers cannot discuss sexual orientation or gender identity with students. There is plenty more besides.
DeSantis proudly says that Florida is “where woke goes to die.” He undeniably has done everything in his power to make that the case. He has gotten a significant number of proposals through the state legislature and onto the statute books. And he has reaped political rewards while deeply upsetting many on the left. Accordingly, one would imagine that Ron DeSantis would be ahead of, or at least neck and neck with, a former president dogged by serious legal trouble and loathed by a vast swathe of the citizenry.
Herein – admittedly, to repeat myself – lies the biggest mystery in American politics at the moment. Why does Donald Trump inspire blind loyalty from a substantial cadre of Republicans and conservatives? He is manifestly damaged goods and has an exceedingly narrow path to vanquishing President Biden in a general election and returning to the White House.
Why assume this risk, especially when Trump’s heir apparent is readily identifiable and comes without the relentless drama and sideshow? Surely, they can see the advantage of having a vigorous, albeit lacking in charisma, 44-year-old under the glare on a debate stage with an elderly man who has objectively lost a lot of speed off his fastball.
It is incredibly difficult to fathom how they can prefer Trump. It is reality nonetheless.
In this context, is DeSantis wasting his time – or perhaps merely planting the seeds for a 2028 run? Staying in the present, from this remove, Trump looks unbeatable. The hopes of DeSantis, as well as those of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, ex-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence, et al, who have joined or will join the field, are predicated on one of two, or both, potential scenarios coming to pass.
In the first, Trump finally wears thin when voters tune in avidly. This could flow partly from his refusal to stop bringing up the 2020 election. In the second, he is so engulfed in imminent legal problems that it develops into an enormous distraction and makes it increasingly untenable to carry on.
Neither seems probable. And even if his challengers’ collective prayers are answered, my guess is that it will be too steep a mountain for Scott or Haley to climb. The intrastate rivals may actually be vying to be Trump’s running mate.
DeSantis has a considerably better chance in this hypothetical milieu. It would depend on his first winning the Iowa caucus, which Trump lost to Texas Senator Ted Cruz in 2016.
Cruz sagely sewed doubts about the sincerity of the New Yorker’s conversion to the pro-life cause among older evangelical Christians, a key constituency in Iowa.
RealClearPolitics.com indicates that DeSantis is only 12 percentage points down in the Hawkeye State currently. The messaging would have to be updated and nuanced. Trump, after all, delivered for evangelicals on abortion.
Instead, it would need to invoke the question of moral character and include subtle reference to a jury’s unanimous verdict that he sexually abused E Jean Carroll. From there to New Hampshire and beyond, DeSantis would be reliant upon a cascading tidal wave of momentum, dollars and media attention in his direction.
Therefore, what’s my extremely early assessment of the quest begun imperfectly by Ron DeSantis on Twitter this Wednesday to be the GOP’s standard-bearer? Definitely not impossible, but not very promising.
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with TheJournal.ie.
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