DeSantis needs to whip Trump early to win, analysts say

Gov. Ron DeSantis has started to take more jabs at former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail, both subtle and direct, but so far it’s barely left a mark.

In the latest major polls since DeSantis’ presidential announcement last week, he’s gained just a point or two on Trump in what was supposed to be his big introduction to the country.

As he enters the main stretch of the GOP primary race trailing by large margins, DeSantis needs to keep pushing hard to try to knock out Trump, political analysts say, and not count on Trump faltering.

“He’s got to play to win and win early,” said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. “… Playing for second is basically playing to be the first loser. Hoping something happens to Donald Trump, politically that’s just a formula for losing.”

While in Iowa, part of a weeklong trip that included planned stops in New Hampshire, South Carolina and then Iowa again, DeSantis accused Trump of having “moved left” on issues ranging from immigration to fiscal policy.

DeSantis said Trump was “detached from reality. … He’s doing it in a way that the voters are going to side with me.”

He also took a shot at Trump’s criticism of his COVID-19 policies, an issue that each candidate has tried to outflank the other to the right after having been mostly on the same wavelength in 2020 and 2021.

“Hell, his whole family moved to Florida under my governorship,” DeSantis said of Trump, now a Palm Beach resident. “Are you kidding me?”

DeSantis attacked Trump for not firing Anthony Fauci as his chief medical adviser, adding that Trump awarding Fauci a presidential commendation upon leaving office was “a gut punch to millions of people around this country.”

He also derided the First Step Act, the criminal justice reform bill signed into law by Trump, as “basically a jailbreak bill … [that] allowed dangerous people out of prison who have now reoffended and really, really hurt a number of people.”

But if DeSantis expected to get a major bounce out of his initial announcement, it hasn’t come yet.

In a Morning Consult poll of GOP primary voters conducted from May 26 to 28, Trump led DeSantis 56% to 22% in a survey that included all major Republican candidates. Trump lost 2 points from the week before, and DeSantis gained 1 point.

In a YouGov/Economist head-to-head poll of Trump vs. DeSantis conducted from May 27 to 31, Trump led DeSantis 52% to 27%. Trump lost 3 points from the week before, but DeSantis still lost 1 point.

There have been comebacks before, said Gregory Koger, a professor of political science at the University of Miami, including Barack Obama overtaking Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008.

“As late as January 5, 2008, the national polls were Clinton 44%, Obama 24%,” Koger said. “So there is a precedent for a seemingly unstoppable front-runner to actually be stopped by somebody who catches them from behind.”

‘Just keep doing it’

The early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire will be key in determining whether DeSantis has a real chance, Scala said.

“If you’re DeSantis, you have to knock the king off the mountain, and you have to do it early,” Scala said.

DeSantis has to win one or both of the early contests, he said, “set Trump on his heels and basically cast the rest of the field into the shadows. That’s the ideal situation for DeSantis. … You can’t just beat Trump once, you’ve got to beat him again and again and again. And just keep doing it.”

Never Back Down, the political committee DeSantis is largely using as his campaign apparatus, plans to spend $200 million to blanket Iowa and other early primary states with door-knocking and voter outreach, according to the New York Times.

The governor’s strategy, though, has been to move to Trump’s political right to court GOP primary voters. That may be the wrong thing to do, said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“He’ll talk a lot about how the Republican Party needs to move on from Trump,” Coleman said. “But he also tries to out-Trump Trump in some areas. He’ll talk about how America is this dark place that’s been affected by ‘wokeism.’ … He can’t just be a different version of Trump, in my mind.”

Even Trump didn’t become successful with culture wars alone, said Howard Schweber, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin.

“Trump did not automatically seek out the most extreme possible position on every issue,” Schweber said. Trump hit establishment Republicans on fiscal issues, as he’s done with DeSantis over his past Social Security stances, and cast himself as a dealmaker who could work with both sides.

“DeSantis’ strategy, to identify a narrow core base and go all in on appealing to that base, I don’t think that’s enough of a platform to run on,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a likely successful strategy across the Midwest, even in Republican primaries. I think it’s a dead loser in the general election.”

Even Trump has begun to take shots at DeSantis’ key phrase.

“I don’t like this term ‘woke,’ because I hear the term ‘woke, woke, woke,” he told a conservative group in Iowa on Thursday. “It’s just a term they use, half the people can’t define it, they don’t know what it is.”

As for DeSantis’ war against Disney, Schweber said, “He still seems to think that he’s emerging from his fight with Disney looking like a strong heroic figure. I don’t think that’s how it looks to most of the country. I think it looks, frankly, silly.”

DeSantis could also be losing an opportunity among some Trump voters, he said, whom polls have shown have Trump fatigue. “[They’d] like someone with the same policies but less baggage. DeSantis is rapidly building up the baggage.”

The battle for second

If DeSantis wanted to show he’s the heir apparent in case of any indictment, arrest or health issue preventing Trump from continuing, he is facing a lot of opposition.

Already, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have all announced presidential bids, and reports indicate former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will soon enter the race.

“The idea of having a one-on-one Trump-DeSantis match, which would have probably worked most in [DeSantis’] favor, is at this point long gone,” Coleman said.

“Let’s say something happens to Trump this summer,” he said. “Okay, what if [Virginia] Gov. Glenn Youngkin gets in? What if the field gets even bigger, and it’s even harder to distinguish himself?”

Koger said it would be difficult for DeSantis to immediately win over Trump supporters in that scenario, especially if he had been ramping up his attacks.

“I don’t know that he can effectively do that in a way that will draw in large numbers of Trump voters, as opposed to having them turn to fringe candidates or just stay home,” Koger said.

One solution to a Trump-DeSantis battle has been the idea that the Florida governor would make a good running mate for Trump.

But Coleman was skeptical about that idea, especially since Trump would have to change his home residence from Florida to get around the constitutional requirement that Electoral College members can’t vote for both a president and vice president from the same state as themselves.

“I think that’s asking a lot of Trump,” Coleman said. “It almost reminds me of how there was a lot of talk of a Dream Team of Obama and Hillary [in 2008]. It’s an idea. Until it isn’t.”