One like Trump, only smarter, younger and without a penchant for constant drama – with this message Ron DeSantis is trying to become the new star of the Republicans in the USA. He celebrated some successes, but it turns out that he needs staying power. Doubts about Trump’s closest rival are growing.
A few months ago, the impossible seemed possible in the USA: sending Donald Trump into retirement. The ex-president seemed weakened – there were the congressional elections last fall, which were disappointing for the Republicans, then the investigations and indictments against him. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, seemed just the right man to fulfill this mission. 44 years young, staunchly conservative, telegenic and with a high election victory behind him, he went into the primary campaign. With some success: He collected many millions of dollars in donations and actually appeared to many voters as a real alternative to Trump. But it is now clear that the matter is more difficult than expected.
A glance at the polls shows that Trump is still the undisputed leader. Across the US, he is still the favorite of 50 to 60 percent of Republican voters. However, since each state has to be won individually in the primaries, the local polls are more meaningful. The 77-year-old is clearly in the lead in Iowa, where voting begins first, as well as in New Hampshire, the next stop in the primaries. DeSantis ranks second everywhere, each lagging behind by between 20 and 30 percent. This picture has been showing for months. DeSantis is stuck.
He has good prerequisites. He enjoyed the media support of Fox News, the influential TV station owned by Rupert Murdoch with a penchant for right-wing extremism, who invited him again and again and offered a stage. Many major donors have also turned away from Trump and are providing the governor from Florida with plenty of cash for the campaign fund. In the second quarter, he collected around $20 million, more than any other candidate including the former president. However, he also spends the money with both hands, for advertising on his own behalf, travel and staff. It made people sit up and take notice when DeSantis had to lay off “less than ten” employees this week, as his campaign admitted.
Surprisingly a guest at CNN
In addition, DeSantis was criticized for appearing constantly on Fox News and other right-wing media, but not facing up to the major broadcasters. Doesn’t he dare? He counteracted the impression by surprisingly giving an interview to CNN recently. This was often interpreted as a change of strategy. It is probably at least the admission that even a DeSantis cannot do without appearing in the mainstream media and thus outside of his bubble.
However, DeSantis has retained his messages. So he’s trying to sell himself as someone even more trumpy than Trump. He’s waging a culture war against everything that strikes him as left or “woke” – his most important combat term. It actually describes the vigilance against racism, sexism and other social problems. For conservatives, however, it has become an emotive word because they often dismiss action against said problems as hysterical, exaggerated, and indoctrinating.
For DeSantis, this led, among other things, to the fact that he signed a law that bans abortions in Florida after six weeks – at a time when many women do not even know that they are pregnant. At the same time, he says things that Trump has also propagated: that he wants to end illegal immigration and drug imports with a wall on the border with Mexico, that China is the biggest enemy and that Europeans should do more for their security. In terms of content, DeSantis is by no means different from Trump. Rather, he tries to overtake him on the right.
DeSantis has the advantage of not carrying around as much baggage as Trump. He faces no charges and as a man with government experience there should be no constant drama and chaos in the White House with him. Many Republicans also recognize that Trump is polarizing Americans and see this as a problem for the actual presidential election. Because no one motivates Democratic voters to go to the polls as much as ex-President Trump.
Open attacks on Trump difficult
But it is also true that Trump is far from finished. He describes the investigations against him as a witch hunt and tells his followers: “They are persecuting me because I am fighting for you”. That still resonates with a large portion of his supporters. After the indictment in New York for hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels, he even received support from across his own party. The trial was condemned as politically motivated.
There is also another problem for DeSantis: Almost every Republican has probably voted for Trump at some point and still has sympathies for him. In this respect, he cannot attack him head-on without appearing as a benefactor. Candidates like Mike Pence or Chris Christie who do exactly that are miserable in the polls. So DeSantis prefers to emphasize that he is a man of the future and dodges questions about the Capitol storm on January 6, 2021 or other Trump scandals.
Is that enough? It doesn’t look like it at the moment. It is still too early for panic in the DeSantis camp, because the hot phase of the election campaign only begins when the primaries are underway. A good start can turn previous surveys upside down. But until then, DeSantis must not lose the trust of its donors and voters. In any case, skepticism seems to be growing at Fox News and other media outlets. The questions are becoming more critical there, patience is dwindling, like the “New York Times” reported. DeSantis has to be careful, otherwise he faces a similar fate as other polling greats from the early phases of the election campaign: that he will eventually run out of breath. It wouldn’t be the first time Trump has been underestimated.