Is Ron DeSantis done? His U.S. presidential bid is sputtering before launch
Florida governor's polling is down, donors are distressed and prized endorsements are flowing to Trump
Ron DeSantis entered this year aiming to be the heir to Donald Trump. He's likelier to wind up as the next Scott Walker, if things don't turn around soon.
In other words: a superstar conservative governor of a swing state whose presidential aspirations crashed and burned before his campaign ever got off the ground.
"DeSantis is taking a bruising," Fox News host Jesse Watters said recently.
"It is a daily pummeling that [Donald] Trump is laying on this guy. How many more weeks and months is this going to sustain itself?"
That was weeks ago. Things have only gotten worse on multiple fronts: the bad polling, the donors getting skittish, the high-profile endorsements flowing toward Trump.
All this is before DeSantis has even announced he's running. But he's spent well over a year building a national podium for a campaign, giving the faithful viewers of Fox News everything they could conceivably ask for, assiduously courting the base voters who turn out in Republican primaries.
Victories in Florida legislature, L's on national stage
He's on the verge of banning transgender care for minors in Florida, even threatening to strip parents of their custody rights.
He's banned school instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation; with the original bill critics dubbed 'Don't Say Gay' and a new version that extends it to all grades.
He's got the strictest immigration proposal in the country: a planned bill that makes it a felony to help undocumented immigrants, potentially threatening their family members.
He's got a new abortion ban at six weeks of pregnancy. This is one year after he signed a 15-week abortion ban into law, and recently fired a pro-choice prosecutor who refused to enforce it.
He's expanded gun rights, including permitless carry.
There are also book bans in school libraries and he's curtailed teaching about racial injustice in schools under the so-called Stop Woke Act.
He's feuded with Disney over wokeness, and with the Special Olympics over a vaccine mandate.
And what does he have to show for this? He's down about 25 points to Donald Trump in national primary polling and that gap is growing, not shrinking.
It requires increasingly strenuous squinting from the pro-DeSantis commentariat to see good news in any of these recent surveys.
Like the National Review declaring Trump's recent surge has slowed down. Or the conservative Washington Post columnist presenting it as good news for DeSantis that a survey shows him losing by only 20 points in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup in New Hampshire where it's just him and Trump, versus 33 points if there are other candidates.
Florida Democrats can only watch in astonishment as their rival notches victory after victory in the state legislature, while taking L's on the national stage.
They see these controversial bills as being passed with one main audience: the national Republican primary voter.
The gun and abortion ideas in particular were not policies Floridians asked for, according to state lawmaker Anna Eskamani.
"Not popular," she said of those policies in an interview with CBC News. "Almost every single policy we face has been co-opted by DeSantis's own ambitions."
Rough ride in Washington
Yet those ambitions have suffered setbacks in just the last few days.
DeSantis, a former federal congressman, was back in his old stomping grounds in the country's capital, seeking to pick up endorsements.
It should have been friendly terrain for the Florida governor, a political crowd in Washington, D.C., where many Republicans long to see Trump disappear.
There were endorsements all right — for Trump.
One Texas lawmaker emerged from a meeting with DeSantis and announced he would be backing Trump.
Another Republican lawmaker from DeSantis's own state, Greg Steube, endorsed Trump. One report said Steube couldn't get face time with the governor, but got a phone call from Trump when he fell off a ladder and wound up in hospital.
A chronicle of DeSantis's recent struggles in The Washington Post characterized him as a cold fish, quoting one of his own backers saying: "He doesn't like talking to people, and it's showing."
Follow the money and endorsements
Yet another Trump endorsement came recently from Byron Donalds, the very lawmaker who spoke at DeSantis's election-night rally last year.
The Post said the former president's team had been courting Donalds, and that they had even discussed a possible cabinet position.
The bottom line: Trump is crushing the governor when it comes to endorsements, racking up approximately 20 times more, according to a methodology used by the website fivethirtyeight.com.
There are also cold feet in another prized DeSantis constituency: big-money donors. Rolling Stone reports that wealthy backers are ripping him.
One billionaire backer, Thomas Peterffy, told the Financial Times he'd paused donations, citing the governor's abortion moves and the book bans.
"I have put myself on hold," he told the paper. "Myself, and a bunch of friends, are holding our powder dry."
The billionaire founder of an electronic brokerage-firm stated the obvious: DeSantis's chances of winning now seem lower than they were.
The governor's seeming refusal to take a swing at Trump might not be helping.
Meanwhile, Trump pummels him daily, ridiculing him in several ads. Trump's campaign team also castigated DeSantis for touring the country while his state, Florida, was dealing with a historic flood.
Can he turn it around?
So, can DeSantis turn it around? The chances are slim, if history is any guide.
Analysis of polling data going back to 1972 finds that an early primary polling lead is actually a pretty good predictor of who will eventually win the party nomination.
That analysis by fivethirtyeight.com found that candidates polling over 35 per cent a year before the primaries wound up winning more than three-quarters of the time.
One anti-Trump Republican, Ross Douthat, argues DeSantis has to run; that his odds of winning a nomination might never be better.
A pollster says DeSantis's political condition isn't fatal.
What he still has going for him is he remains far ahead of any other alternative candidate to Trump, according to Carl Bialik, U.S. politics editor for the YouGov firm.
"I think he's a very clear No. 2 right now," Bialik said, noting it's hard to know how unforeseen news events could affect the race. After all, DeSantis's rival faces multiple criminal investigations.
Then again, just look at what happened the first time Trump was charged with a crime: his lead over DeSantis only grew.
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