#DeSantis tries to shift narrative after campaign criticism

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his allies are trying to change the narrative about a campaign that is widely seen as having underperformed so far.

DeSantis has faced criticism for early missteps — notably a glitch-ridden Twitter Spaces launch event and comments downplaying the war in Ukraine. His numbers have drifted down from just months ago. 

As of Friday afternoon, he lagged former President Trump by 29 points in the weighted national polling average maintained by FiveThirtyEight. DeSantis is drawing the support of about 1-in-4 Republican voters; he was backed by around 1-in-3 in mid-March.

But the candidate and his campaign are making the case that forecasts of failure are vastly premature — and based on a misunderstanding of their long-term strategy.

As they seek to shift perceptions onto a more favorable footing, they stress a number of points, including that the campaign is at a very early stage; DeSantis is showing strength in fundraising; he has withstood a barrage of attacks from Team Trump with his favorability intact; and his record in Florida, both electorally and policy-wise, provides a template that can be replicated in the national race.

All of those threads get woven together in support of their overall argument that DeSantis is the only Republican who can beat Trump, and the best Republican to beat President Biden in the general election.

“Ron DeSantis has been underestimated in every race he has won, and this time will be no different,” said DeSantis campaign press secretary Bryan Griffin. “Donald Trump has to explain to Republican voters why he didn’t do the things he is now promising in his first term as president. Governor Ron DeSantis over-delivered on his promises as governor and has the national vision we need to restore our country, clean out D.C. and lead our Great American Comeback.”

Griffin added a sentiment that has become a rallying cry for DeSantis and his supporters recently: “This campaign is a marathon, not a sprint; we will be victorious.”

An official for Never Back Down, the main super PAC supporting DeSantis, made the argument that the contest for the GOP nomination is essentially at two-person race.

The official contended that, even if other contenders at times edged up slightly in the polls, they lacked the infrastructure or on-the-ground investment to be truly competitive with the former president.

There is, to be sure, some truth in that observation. No other Republican candidate is in double-digits as yet in national polling averages.

But that could change in unpredictable ways once debate season gets underway. The first clash between the GOP candidates is set for Aug. 23 in Milwaukee.

For the moment, the Florida governor is defending himself from critiques.

In a Thursday interview on Fox News, DeSantis told host Will Cain, “I’m running to win in January and February. I’m not running to juice polling now.”

Asked about a perceived failure to connect, DeSantis sought to turn the focus to his fundraising and his favorability numbers:

“I’ve also been attacked more than anybody, as you know,” he told Cain. “Donald Trump has spent over 20 million [dollars] attacking me — that’s more than he spent supporting Republican candidates in last year’s midterm elections.”

An Economist/YouGov poll released earlier this week indicated that 73 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of DeSantis, and 15 percent have an unfavorable view. For Trump, the equivalent figures are 75 percent and 23 percent. 

Those statistics bear out the DeSantis team’s argument that the initial wave of Trump attacks hasn’t fundamentally damaged the Florida governor.

But he still needs to best Trump, not just be seen in a broadly positive light by Republican voters. And the battle between the two men looks set to become nastier. 

On Friday, Trump told a crowd in Council Bluffs, Iowa, that DeSantis was a “lousy candidate” who had only won the Florida governorship in 2018 thanks to the then-president’s endorsement. Trump suggested, as he has done on a number of occasions, that DeSantis is being disloyal in challenging him.

Trump also attacked DeSantis as “a globalist sellout and Paul Ryan and Karl Rove acolyte,” referring to the former Speaker, a relative moderate, and the well-known Republican strategist. 

Never Back Down shot back rapidly with a video compilation of past clips of Trump praising Ryan.

Last week, DeSantis allies tweeted a highly controversial video that suggested Trump was too liberal on LGBTQ+ issues. The video was criticized as homophobic, including by some Republicans. 

DeSantis, in his Fox interview, stayed away from such contentious terrain and instead took a thinly veiled shot at Trump’s electability. 

Referring to a general election, he said: “You can’t win with just Republican voters. I think we showed in Florida, you know, if you want a big victory, you’ve got to win independent voters, you’ve got to win people who haven’t voted for our party in the last several cycles.” 

“I’ve shown I can do that. And I think we can do it nationally,” he added.

DeSantis at least seems sure to have sufficient money to wage a drawn-out war with Trump for the nomination.

His campaign has said it raised $20 million between the time he declared his candidacy in late May and the end of June. Meanwhile, Never Back Down says it has raised $130 million since its formation in March.

Republican insiders say there is no mistaking the problems DeSantis faces — but that he has time to right the ship.

“Poll numbers drive the narrative in presidential politics, and DeSantis’s poll numbers haven’t been moving in the right direction,” said GOP strategist Alex Conant.

Conant said Trump’s dominance of the media was one reason for that. But he said DeSantis had also made unforced errors.

“He failed to have a good launch — campaigns can capture some attention with a good launch, and he missed. Having a clear position on Ukraine, in contrast to Trump, was also a missed opportunity.”

But Conant said the debates — “when more can happen in one night than in the previous three months” — were the most obvious opportunity for DeSantis to turn the page.

As for DeSantis himself, he is arguing that he is ready to grind out a win over the long haul.

“We’re in the process of building out a great organization And I think we’re going to be on the ground in all these early states,” DeSantis told Fox, adding a well-known football metaphor: “It is a, ‘3 yards and a cloud of dust’-type situation.”

For now, his supporters just want to see some sign that he’s making any progress in moving down the field.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.