Aug.14

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Why DeSantis Failed to Launch

After his landslide reelection as governor of Florida in 2022, many Republican Trump haters saw Ron DeSantis as the Great White Hope. They were anticipating that he would be the one to slay the Orange Dragon. The media bought into that model as well. Only it didn't happen. Why? Political analyst Amy Walter talked to Sarah Longwell, a Republican pollster and runner of focus groups, to find out what happened. Here are her conclusions, in short:

• He waited too long: Just after the 2022 election, DeSantis was riding high. In an election where Republican after Republican went down to defeat, or at best squeaked by, DeSantis won in the biggest landslide in the country, and in the biggest swing state of them all. He was a winner. He was Trump without the baggage. So did he jump into the presidential race? No, he dilly-dallied until everyone had forgotten what a giant killer he was. For months, maybe he was in and maybe not. That left a vacuum that Trump instinctively filled. By the time DeSantis finally got in, his standing was way down and there was no vacuum anymore. DeSantis may be very smart, but his sense of political timing is way off.
  
  
• He had the wrong message: When he finally got in, DeSantis talked about how he was going to slay the woke bogeyman. He talked about it at breakfast, at lunch, and at dinner. In Iowa, he talked about it at breakfast, at dinner, and at supper. But few people even knew what "woke" was and they didn't really care. Also, the target audience was wrong. He positioned himself to the right of Trump. Those people were never going to budge. If he had positioned himself to the left of Trump, as a conservative but sane fellow who would reduce government waste, cut taxes, appoint conservative judges, and oppose abortion, he might have peeled off Republicans who like Trump's policies but don't like all the baggage. Back in January, those people could have been his base. Now it is too late because he is way to Trump's right and there is no going back.
  
  
• His campaign was too insular: DeSantis "knew" what Republican primary voters wanted and he was going to deliver it. He didn't have anyone in his inner circle with the guts and authority to tell him: "Ron, you're full of yourself. Nobody wants to buy what you're selling. Cut it out." Most of his staff was very inexperienced and had no idea how to run a national campaign. Running nationally is not just a bigger version of a campaign in Florida. In Florida, you get big donors to give you $50 million and then you carpet-bomb the state with TV ads. That algorithm does not work in any of the early states, where you have to meet the voters one at a time and talk to them. DeSantis felt that was beneath his dignity. He went to a meeting of the really big donors in Nevada early on, gave a short speech, and went home. No schmoozing, no photo ops, no asking the donors about their priorities. He was Mr. Know-it-all. The media picked up on this very fast.
  
  
• He's not presidential: The conventional wisdom is that DeSantis' dislike of retail politics did him in. The focus groups show that Republicans don't really dislike him, but see him as potential vice presidential material, not presidential material. Maybe some day, but not now.
  

So most of what went wrong were unforced errors on his own part. His political judgment isn't so good and he doesn't take kindly to anyone on his team telling him that. He made a bunch of bad choices and when they went south, doubled down on them. Good politicians know when they need to reinvent themselves. DeSantis doesn't get it. Even now, when he's "reinventing" himself on a weekly basis, it's just cosmetic things like swapping his campaign managers. At this point, probably his only hope of becoming president is to disappear for 4-8 years, and then reemerge once memories have faded a bit, à la Richard Nixon in 1968. Of course, Nixon was a strong enough candidate that he nearly won in 1960. That's not happening for DeSantis in 2024. (V)