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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is doing a lot of things presidential candidates usually do, even though he hasn’t officially entered the 2024 race for the White House. He’s taken his “anti-woke” message on the road to Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia. He’s on a nationwide tour promoting his new book, which included a stop at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi, California.
One thing DeSantis has not done yet — at least not publicly — is to take on his main contender for the GOP nomination, former President Donald Trump. Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman says that won’t be a viable strategy for much longer, adding that a possible DeSantis-Trump GOP primary race won’t be as close as the media suggests it will be.
There are many in the media who want you to think the Republican primary is very competitive and very close. And the truth is, it’s not nearly as competitive and not nearly as close as some media outlets are telling you. It’s obviously better for ratings for it to be a really close and hotly-contested primary. The truth is, unless something changes, Trump will easily be the Republican nominee. Now, let’s look at some caveats.
One caveat is that the polls Trump does best in are the ones where there are a whole bunch of candidates — Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, all these other people, and Trump does better in those. When it’s just Trump versus DeSantis, DeSantis does better and in some cases actually is ahead of Trump in some polls. What this suggests is that Trump’s support is relatively stable and that there’s a bunch of Republican voters who want someone other than Trump. And so it’s better for Trump for that non-Trump support to be divided up amongst a whole bunch of candidates, rather than consolidated behind one candidate, who seems to be Ron DeSantis.
The difficulty with that for Trump is that eventually, as the primary gets going, people who are only pulling one, two, three, four, or five percent and don’t win any primaries, will start to drop out. And the data today suggest that one, two, three, four, or five percent will consolidate around DeSantis. That’s a concern for Trump, but it’s very, very early.
Secondly, you can make the case that it’s actually incredible the amount of support DeSantis has, given that he hasn’t actually announced that he’s running yet. And it can only go up from here. If DeSantis is getting 30 or 40% without even being a candidate, just imagine what will happen if he becomes a candidate. That isn’t untrue. But, when you talk to Trump supporters, there aren’t that many who would switch to DeSantis from Trump, if DeSantis ran. There is the opposite. There are people who say, “I’m kind of done with Trump. I’d rather DeSantis, but I will vote for Trump if DeSantis doesn’t run or if it seems like he’s not viable.”
So that could be a difficulty for DeSantis.
