![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() While his critics have lambasted his sometimes quirky on-camera interactions with voters, he put on a decent show of interest in Wayne County and seemed to be getting used to the bizarre spectacle of greeting voters in front of a scrum of cameras. But DeSantis has to believe it since otherwise, there’s no rationale for a White House bid rooted in the claim that he’s the strongest alternative to Trump.ĭeSantis is promising to embed himself in the lives of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire as he seeks a rebound. A day earlier, the governor had told voters in the Granite State that “the vast majority of Republican primary voters are either definitely going to vote for someone else or (are) willing to, you know, if you make the case.” “There’s too many voters who just aren’t going to vote for him going forward,” DeSantis told Fox’s Bret Baier in an interview Monday. After dismissing the ex-president’s “juvenile insults” Sunday, DeSantis is now testing an argument he hopes will also dawn on Republicans before voting starts – that that the ex-president would lose the GOP another election. But he’s now edging closer to a direct clash with Trump. The Florida governor has struggled to negotiate this dilemma, mostly arguing that Trump’s troubles are a distraction from the themes Republicans need to strike in the general election. And any party figure who criticizes Trump soon becomes a pariah. ![]() Each new indictment brings a bump in the polls and fundraising. The ex-president remains a hero to millions of Republican primary voters. While he faces classic signs of a campaign in free fall, including staffer layoffs and donor concern, DeSantis’ problems are not all self-inflicted. But Trump is looking formidable, complicating an effort by DeSantis to show he’d get more than the ex-president done in the Oval Office, without the chaos. And the first GOP debate hasn’t even taken place yet. There are still more than five months before the first ballots are cast. National polls don’t reflect the full picture of a race that plays out state-by-state. The Florida governor, once hailed as the face of the post-Trump-era Republican Party but who is now trying to revive a flagging campaign, needs to disqualify the ex-president as a viable general election candidate without alienating millions of Republicans who adore him.īut a New York Times/Siena College poll showing second-placed DeSantis trailing Trump by a stunning 37 points Monday only underscored what has been obvious for weeks: his approach isn’t working. The stifling humidity hanging over the fairgrounds will be a memory come January when Hawkeye State voters brave a chilly night to decide whether DeSantis will emerge with a true challenge to Trump or end up as the next punchline about supposedly soaring GOP presidential hopefuls who crashed to earth alongside Rudy Giuliani, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. “Holy cow … that’s big, a big boy,” he remarked of a muscly Angus bull calf. At a county fair, his heeled dress boots, vest and TV-ready haircut seemed a little incongruous as he inspected cattle barns and pig pens. With corn fields stretching to the horizon, he sought redemption in deeply conservative Wayne County, where pickup trucks throw up vast clouds of dust from gravel sideroads. Under a tangle of water pipes on the ceiling, the man who runs the nation’s fourth largest economy was back to politics in its most basic form, as around 100 would-be caucus-goers watched him implement a new strategy that implies that the ex-president is taking Iowa for granted.ĭeSantis then climbed aboard his red and blue bus emblazoned with the “Never Back Down” slogan of the super PAC that is keeping his campaign alive. Ron DeSantis hit the reset button in a cramped basement under a neighborhood grill in the tiny southern Iowa town of Chariton last week. ![]()
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