Donald Trump spent the last week in a frenetic state of panic about being arrested for filing false business reports in New York. Many would consider that a very bad week, but you might not realize it if you look at the top trending stories this weekend.
Over at Memeorandum, the “Top Items” are all about how Trump is moving further ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the polls. Nancy Cook of Bloomberg writes that DeSantis is the one who “just suffered through the kind of week a candidate for the highest office in the US would like to forget.”
Steven Shepard of Politico explains that DeSantis is inexplicably losing the key beer-drinking demographic to the teetotaling Trump, mainly because he’s behind 17 points with Republicans without a college degree.
The big story, however, comes from Dasha Burns, Jonathan Allen, Allan Smith and Henry J. Gomez of NBC News, who delve into the widespread doubt among pro-DeSantis Republicans that their would-be champion has what it takes: “NBC News spoke with more than 20 GOP strategists, politicians and donors about whether DeSantis can bounce back from adversity — some of it self-inflicted…”
They’re all concerned about the Florida governor’s “recent stumbles,” and there’s “a growing sentiment among GOP operatives that Trump may be impossible to defeat — even with a possible indictment looming over him.”
So, why all the sudden concern about DeSantis’s trajectory?
Once surging, DeSantis remains well below Trump in polls measuring the prospective GOP primary field. He was slow to respond to the possible indictment of Trump — and then sideswiped the former president once he did. DeSantis was also forced this week to clean up his position on U.S. support for Ukraine after a backlash from establishment Republicans.
Number one, there was some slippage in the polls. Number two, he wasn’t sufficiently supportive of Trump. Number three, he made some contradictory remarks about Vladimir Putin and the war effort in Ukraine.
Truthfully, I don’t believe anything DeSantis has recently said or done has had much effect on his position. What we’ve seen is the Republican base coming back to Trump as his legal peril has come into clearer view. And ever here, it’s easy to exaggerate the movement. As the NBC News article notes, “Trump has led DeSantis in nearly every reputable national poll since the start of Joe Biden’s presidency in 2021.”
Comparing Trump-DeSantis polls from January and February to the same polls from late March, there’s consistent movement in Trump’s direction, but it’s fairly modest. What’s harder to find is the supposed surge DeSantis has squandered. It looks more like DeSantis went from being 30 points down last September to more like 20 points down in November. The picture doesn’t look that different today.
For me, I think there are really only two valid takes from DeSantis’s “recent struggles.” His uneven and uncertain approach to both Ukraine and Trump’s legal problems does give one some pause about how adroit he is as a politician, and that shouldn’t inspire confidence when projecting how he’ll do going forward. On the other hand, as long as Trump is under threat of indictment (but not actually indicted), we shouldn’t expect Republican voters to say anything negative about him to survey-takers. The mood is far too protective and defensive for that.
A similar situation happened after President Bill Clinton was impeached for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. Many progressives were deeply unhappy with Clinton’s presidency but good luck finding any of them who would disapprove of his performance in office while the Senate trial was underway. Clinton actually appeared more popular in polls, while that clearly was an illusion. Democrats were furious with him, but they weren’t going to share that with some stranger on the phone.
So, supporters of DeSantis have reason to be concerned, but I wouldn’t be panicked. The polls mean very little right now, and some what makes Trump look strong actually hides his biggest weakness, which is concern about his electability that will only be exacerbated at his legal woes begin to play out.
DeSantis is positioned very well to be the alternative to Trump, and that’s exactly where he wants and needs to be.
If there is an indictment of Trump, then most stuff up to this point will matter little. If there are multiple indictments of Trump, then all this will be totally meaningless, and largely forgotten. The landscape will be almost entirely rearranged.
Good, solid contrarian analysis.
I’ll just lay the following marker down now so I can say “I told you so” to anyone who might listen if it happens some time in the next year, and Trump ends up losing the GOP nomination (in part) because of it:
It strikes me that there’s room for a Republican to win the nomination by—figuratively speaking—punching Trump in the nose during a debate (will there even be GOP presidential debates this primary season?), or in some other carefully staged and chosen situation.
“The thing about you Donald is, you’re a loser. People think you’re a winner because you played one on TV. The truth is: you’ve been a loser all your life. Your father gave you a fortune and you lost it. You declared bankruptcy not once, not twice, not three times, but four times (or whatever it is). You lost money running a casino in Atlantic City.”
“You lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes. Then, as the incumbent president during a pandemic when the nation was ready to rally behind you, you somehow lost to Joe Biden by 7(!) million votes. When your staff told you that you lost, you couldn’t bear the thought of being such a loser so you filed 60(!) lawsuits trying to overturn the election. Guess what? You lost all of those too.”
“Now you’ve spent the last 3 years scamming good, loyal conservative voters with shady fundraising schemes so you can continue to live in your overblown mansions with your gold-plated toilets. And where’s it gotten you? Indicted 2 (3?) (4?) times. Guess what, Donnie? You’re going to lose those cases too.”
“The Republican party and the conservative movement deserve better. They deserve to win. That’s what I’ve done as (governor of Florida/Virginia/etc., senator from South Carolina/Missouri/etc.) and that’s why when the voters of Iowa (NH, SC, NV, etc.) go to cast your ballots next week/month, I ask for your support—because together we can win. With Donald Trump, we’ll lose again…not because the American people don’t support our platform, but because Donald is a loser.”
I remember, in Holy Grail, the admonition, “You don’t vote for kings!” Well, you don’t vote for cult figureheads, either, and the contemporary GOP is more than sufficiently detached from facts to qualify as a cult.