DeSantis’s uphill battle

The Big Story 

Ron DeSantis, who officially joined the 2024 primary field Wednesday after a bumpy rollout on Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk, faces numerous hurdles as he looks to take on former President Trump.

© Greg Nash

It hasn’t been a smooth start for the Florida governor.

DeSantis’s announcement on Wednesday was riddled with glitches and technical errors, resulting in a delay and sparking mockery from his critics on both the right and the left.

DeSantis’s team has pointed out that thousands of Twitter users were trying to listen to the conversation, contributing to the technical difficulties. The campaign also said DeSantis raised $1 million in the first hour of his announcement. You can read The Hill’s Niall Stanage on the five big takeaways from the highly anticipated launch here.

Despite the technical difficulties, DeSantis and his campaign say they are full-steam ahead. On Thursday, the campaign announced its first early-state tour, titled “Our Great American Comeback Tour.”

It will start on Tuesday with a “campaign kickoff” in Iowa. The Florida governor will then traverse the Hawkeye State on Wednesday, stopping in Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Pella, and Cedar Rapids. On Thursday, DeSantis will travel to New Hampshire, with plans to visit Laconia, Rochester, Salem and Manchester. The final leg of the tour will take place in South Carolina, where DeSantis is set to make stops in Beaufort, Lexington, and Greenville.

But it will be an uphill climb for the Florida governor, who continues to trail the former president in state- and national-level polling. An Emerson College poll of Iowa voters released on Thursday showed Trump with 62 percent support among Hawkeye State Republican voters, while DeSantis trailed at 20 percent support.

We’ll also start to get a better look at what DeSantis’s strategy is now that he’s officially a candidate. The Hill’s Max Greenwood reports that the governor and his allies are preparing to launch a major counteroffensive against Trump.

“It’s a one-two punch of wanting to be aggressive, well-organized and well-placed,” said one adviser to the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down. “We’re going to force the Trump campaign and his supporters to try to keep up.” But it’s not just Trump who DeSantis will have to hit back against. The Hill’s Brett Samuels reports on why the other Republican contenders are piling up on DeSantis, as opposed to the former president.

Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, we’re Max Greenwood, Caroline Vakil and Julia Manchester. Each week we track the key stories you need to know to stay ahead of the 2024 election and who will set the agenda in Washington.   

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Essential Reads 

Key election stories and other recent campaign coverage:

Trump on DeSantis: ‘I think he had a rough opening’

Mexican president tells Florida Hispanics: Don’t give ‘one single vote’ to DeSantis

DeSantis says he’ll consider pardoning Jan. 6 defendants, including Trump

The Countdown 

Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:

• 142 days until Louisiana’s gubernatorial election

• 166 days until Kentucky’s and Mississippi’s gubernatorial generals

• 530 days until the 2024 general election

2024 Watch 

© Associated Press/John Raoux

DeSantis is foregoing a tactic that a growing number of campaigns have used over the years to entice small-dollar donors: matching funds.

“Many campaigns try to guilt-trip you into donating or promote fake matching programs,” DeSantis’s team says in a post on their website. “It’s dishonest and it is not the kind of relationship we are building with the donors making an investment in this movement. That is why our team is taking a different approach.”

The strategy is a clear swipe at a practice that many campaigns and political groups — both Democratic and Republican — have used to lead small-dollar donors to believe that their contributions go further than they actually do. Trump himself has sent out pleas for donations, promising to multiply donations.

It’s unclear how such matching programs actually work. The potential for matching is restricted under federal campaign finance laws, because individuals are limited in how much money they can give. A one-to-one matching program would likely require wealthy donors who haven’t yet given to a campaign to agree to match smaller contributions.

The candidates themselves could also choose to match contributions using their own money, though that hasn’t worked out in practice as well as it does in theory.

Primary Report 

© Greg Nash

As DeSantis was preparing to jump into the primary earlier this week, one other Republican kept popping up in headlines as a potential alternative to Trump: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Youngkin raised eyebrows last week when his political arm rolled out a video that had all the trappings of a presidential campaign spot. And on Monday, Axios reported the governor was considering a 2024 bid amid encouragement from donors after he said last month he would not get on the presidential campaign trail in 2023.

But The Hill’s Julia Manchester wrote about how there are many more factors at play for Youngkin, including Virginia’s hard-fought state legislature elections coming up in November.

Youngkin and his allies have been persistent in saying that he is laser focused on those contests, which will be viewed as a referendum on his first two years in office.

In Other News 

Branch out with a different read from The Hill:

Tim Scott says South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban is ‘good news’

This is the fourth in a five-part series called “How Florida got so conservative.” Florida’s shift to the right has turned the Sunshine State under Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) into a model for other GOP-led states seeking to enact culturally conservative policies.   It has also turned DeSantis into a national Republican leader preparing to challenge former President Trump in the GOP primary …

Full Story

CNN to host town hall with Pence amid 2024 speculation

CNN will host a town hall with former Vice President Mike Pence in Iowa next month, as he continues to fuel speculation of a 2024 White House run, the network announced Thursday. The forum, which CNN described as a Republican presidential town hall, will air June 7 at 9 p.m. CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash will moderate the discussion, as the former vice president takes questions from audience members who have …

Full Story

Around the Nation 

Local and state headlines regarding campaigns and elections:

• Beyond fighting ‘wokeism.’ Understanding Ron DeSantis’ conservative policy agenda (The Miami Herald)

• Judge schedules trial in lawsuit against Wisconsin’s fake electors for weeks before 2024 presidential election (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

• What should we expect when Newsom, a Gen Z rep and Democratic drama take the convention stage? (The Sacramento Bee)

What We’re Reading 

Election news we’ve flagged from other outlets:

• Iowa voters don’t think DeSantis’ Twitter failure is real life (Politico)

• Deh-Santis or Dee-Santis? Even He Has Been Inconsistent (The New York Times)

Elsewhere Today 

Key stories on The Hill right now:

GOP senator vows to delay debt ceiling deal lacking ‘substantial reform’

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the chairman of the conservative Senate Republican Steering Committee, is threatening to use “every procedural tool” at his disposal to slow down Senate passage of a bill to raise the debt ceiling if it doesn’t include “substantial” reforms. Lee could drag out the floor proceedings on a bill for days, something … Read more

Democrats seek unlikely debt ceiling savior: Mitch McConnell

With time running short and the danger of a national default growing, Democrats are hoping an unlikely savior will come to the rescue: Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).  Democratic lawmakers say McConnell and other Senate Republicans are fooling themselves if they think Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is in a position … Read more

What People Think 

Opinions related to campaigns and elections submitted to The Hill:

• Ron DeSantis: The good, the bad and the beautiful

• What does the growing GOP primary field mean for Trump?

• Will millennials stay quiet in 2024?

You’re all caught up. See you next time!