One advantage to living in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina is, ‘You’re the first to see the new political ads.‘ The disadvantage is ‘You’re forced to watch them for over six months or more before the primaries start in late January or early February (depending on the state).
Former President Trump began advertising against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis well over a month ago. Long before (announcement due out this evening on Twitter) DeSantis announced his candidacy, Trump’s Super PAC had begun attacking the potential candidate over his record as a Congressman.
Then, of course, we have the new ‘Never Back Down PAC’ (supporting DeSantis) running their new advertisements against Trump. The advertising wars on both sides have even garnered International news as far away as Australia.
As mentioned, Ron DeSantis is expected to announce his candidacy for the White House on Wednesday evening at 6:00 PM EDT in an interview with Elon Musk on Twitter. Musk has not hidden the fact that he is supporting the DeSantis campaign for the Presidency. Twitter will give DeSantis a significant advantage because (even though his account was re-opened) DeSantis regularly uses Twitter to speak to their 140,000,000 subscribers. Trump has yet to begin using Twitter again and has been sticking to his platform of Truth Social. Twitter has a much larger audience and much farther reaching than Truth Social, so this will be an advantage for DeSantis.
It is evident that Donald Trump is walking on razor blades regarding the DeSantis campaign. Currently, Trump has a commanding lead in the polling for the GOP nomination by some 30 points. However, as rich as Trump’s war chest is, DeSantis also has trainloads of cash ready to be invested in his campaign in addition to having garnered the support of a host of Republican whale Mega-Donors. In fact, Fox News is now reporting that Fort Worth Billionaire Hal Lambert has decided to support DeSantis in addition to his calling for Trump to drop out of the race.
For DeSantis to defeat the former President, he will have to come up with a feasible campaign strategy to launch against Trump. This is going to be much easier said than done. Trump has weathered countless attacks by women, media, politicians, Congress, and even the Democrat Party and an Attorney General. In all cases, the President’s polling numbers only increased. Americans now believe that Trump has been a victim of “witch hunts.” Even in the face of being found guilty in a civil court of sexual abuse, his numbers still increased. Even in the face of an indictment in New York City over paying off a porn star, his numbers have only increased.
Governor DeSantis’s other issue with winning the primaries is “Trump-Nation” to loosely describe Trump’s followers. These are not ordinary constituents; these folks are rabid about their candidate. This is not a small following. Donald Trump possesses no less than 50-60 million supporters at the very least. Politically speaking, barring a criminal conviction before the general election in 2024, the odds of DeSantis winning the nomination are almost zero with the following that Trump has.
The other issue for DeSantis is whether he can defeat the Democrat nominee. The hard-core reality is America is a “Center/Right (only slightly)” nation. For the Republicans to win, they must attract approximately half of the Independents and about 10% (or slightly less) of the more Moderate or Conservative “Blue-Dog” Democrats. This is the reality for the numbers to work for DeSantis to win against a Democrat.
If Joe Biden, in the end, is the nominee, YES, Ron DeSantis stands a very good chance, simply because America is in a bad way economically, and inflation is high. We are bogged down in Ukraine and many other issues. However, hypothetically, what if Robert Kennedy Jr. pulls off the nomination? Can DeSantis defeat him?
The answer is it is doubtful that DeSantis could pull off a victory against Kennedy. The reason is Ron DeSantis is widely known as a hammer-wielding right-wing conservative. While we on the hard right enjoy his wars with the LGTBQ community, when the Democrats begin running their ads bashing the Governor’s positions on the subject, he will be painted in a very negative light.
DeSantis is very outspoken on abortion. Keep in mind that it was this particular issue which re-elected Gretchen Whitmer as Governor of Michigan. Michigan is a state that the Republicans must garner (it is one of the big 4 Northern states) to win back the White House. Considering that 67% of America believes that a woman has the right to choose, this topic alone is one that (if DeSantis’s campaign team can keep him away from) he may stand a chance. But if he puts abortion as one of his primary campaign positions, he loses.
For Ron DeSantis to be victorious, he needs to run as (Bush 41 so eloquently said) a Compassionate Conservative. This doesn’t mean “roll-over” on his core beliefs, but it means not spewing hard-line rhetoric on the campaign trail. He will already have the conservative base; now he needs to pick up the middle and some Dems.
This race between a rich DeSantis campaign and an even more prosperous Trump campaign has all the makings of a race for the ages. Grab your popcorn; this is going to be good.
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