Is the DeSantis Campaign Over? Staff Confirms Clue That Could Mean End is Near for 2024 Hopeful
Ron DeSantis is cutting his campaign staff. The presidential bid of the Florida governor is over, right?
That’s the conclusion one might reach as the leftist echo chamber of ABC, Associated Press, The Guardian, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NBC, Yahoo, Politico, HuffPost, and Rolling Stone look with one eye on the DeSantis campaign and the other searching for vultures perhaps circling overhead.
Goodbye, Ronnie — we hardly knew ye.
Even Fox News has joined in with — okay, forget that. Who knows what they’re about anymore?
To be sure, cutting 10 people from a campaign staff some 16 months before a general election is not a reflection of strategy, it’s about finances.
So what is going on with the DeSantis campaign? Is it losing momentum?
CNN’s Jake Tapper explored those issues in a one-to-one sitdown with DeSantis. “Some of your supporters are disappointed that your campaign has yet to catch fire the way they would want in terms in terms of polling,” Tapper noted.
“One Republican pollster — one who is sympathetic to you — I was asking her about your campaign and she said that she thought the issue was: you bumped up [in polls] at the beginning because voters, Republican voters, saw you as a more electable conservative like Trump,” according to Tapper.
“Trump without the baggage,” he continued. “But then they say as you go further and further to the right on these divisive social issues that could alienate moderate suburban moms, et cetera, Republican voters see you as less and less electable.”
DeSantis quickly blew off the whole idea. “I don’t think it’s true,” he responded. “The proof is in the pudding.
“I mean, I took a state that had been a 1-point state and we won it by 20 percentage points — 1.5 million votes — our bread and butter were people like suburban moms.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, remained upbeat about his chance of defeating former President Donald Trump even as his campaign cuts staff and attempts a restart amid stalled polling and mounting expenses. https://t.co/elbmsaxN2y pic.twitter.com/DBOZ2O1Lhq
— CNN (@CNN) July 18, 2023
DeSantis recounted how in Florida he has led the movement for parents’ rights, school choice, and the removal of indoctrination within the schools.
And he pointed to what he called “bread and butter issues” like crime, inflation, and the economy — “Florida’s economy is ranked number one of all 50 states.”
Slipping in the polls DeSantis blamed on [iii]initial extensive media coverage he received after his strong re-election win while being required to his do job as governor, especially in dealing with the legislature.
DeSantis touted “a great legislative session” which passed socially conservative things appealing to large numbers of people and said the analysis suggested by Tapper was wrong.
“So I was basically taking fire, really nonstop, since then because a lot of people view me as a threat. I think the left views me as a threat because I’ll beat Biden and actually deliver on all this stuff.
“And then, of course, people who have their allegiances on the Republican side have gone after me.
“But the reality is,” DeSantis continued, “This is a state-by-state process. I’m not running a campaign to try to juice, you know, whatever we are in the national polls.”
Campaigning now means building an organization that does the unglamorous work of getting people to Iowa caucus centers in the dead of winter instead of developing flashy national advertising campaigns, according to DeSantis.
He spoke of the current organizational efforts in South Carolina and eventually in New Hampshire.
Yet, DeSantis described a narrative of critics “almost trying too hard” to debunk his campaign.
“They’ve been saying that I’m doing poorly for my whole time as governor, basically, this is always the case,” noting critics saying his refusal to shut down Florida during COVID would cost him re-election or there would be a similar penalty for fighting Disney.
“I kind of get a kick out when they say ‘He didn’t fund-raise well,’ when I did more than Biden and Trump in the second quarter, and I’m just a governor.”
So, the alphabet echo chamber — AP, ABC, NBC and the Timeses and all — are trying to lure vultures over the DeSantis campaign and if he says otherwise he deluding himself.
Or Ron DeSantis has been down this road before, and staff cuts or no, he’s still projecting himself as a winner.
Stay tuned.
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