The reality is that Ron DeSantis has a real challenge in this election in the form of a popular, at least among Republican voters, ex-president who is running again. Republicans like Donald Trump. No one else does. Independents don’t like him, and Democrats positively loathe him to the extent that he would generate huge turnout numbers even for the senile, desiccated old pervert he will be running against (unless they trade Crusty out for Governor Hairstyle). The only path for Ron DeSantis is to somehow get around the fact that Republicans still like Donald Trump. And they should still like Donald Trump. He can be very annoying, but he was also a pretty good president overall and would probably be perfectly acceptable if he won reelection.

Still, a challenger has to get around the voters (many of them new voters) who will never vote for anyone else and those who are open to it in theory but will stick with Trump in practice. You’re either going to overcome the Trump obstacle or you’re not, and a lot of that’s out of your control if you’re challenging him. The only way to do that is to win the argument on electability—the case is that Donald Trump is going to have a very difficult time winning in November because about 53 percent of Americans unreasonably hate him. You’re not going to change the voters’ minds on policy because the two are very similar, though I think Ron DeSantis would be stronger on policy because he’s more ideological and a more focused leader. The only differentiator is electability. Ron DeSantis essentially has to win with the argument that you should go with him because he is more likely to win in November than Donald Trump for a variety of reasons. Of course, the risk is that the voters shrug and say, “We like this guy enough that we’re going to take our chances.”

Which is what the polls, if you believe them, appear to say.

But that’s not the fault of the campaign. Nor does it have much to do with Ron DeSantis. First of all, it’s not necessarily a reflection of the voters’ feelings toward RDS. The polling shows that they like Ron DeSantis just fine, but they prefer Donald Trump this year for various reasons. None of those reasons have anything to do with Ron DeSantis. He remains the second choice of most voters.




[Post edited by JMHoo at 12/28/2023 07:10AM]