DeSantis' 'terrible summer': Donors, experts see narrowing path to overtake Trump
Hugh Culverhouse donated $350,000 to the Never Back Down super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign in June, but he won’t be giving any more money unless the governor's ongoing campaign reboot includes a new message.
An attorney, investor and major Southwest Florida landowner involved in the development industry, Culverhouse believes the DeSantis campaign has suffered a series of “self-inflicted” wounds that require a new pitch to voters.
“What the guy did in Florida doesn’t resonate well in America,” Culverhouse told the Paste BN Network-Florida in an interview.
Once viewed as a major force that could test Donald Trump’s hold on the GOP, DeSantis’ campaign is limping toward the end of summer and the start of the busy fall campaign season, hobbled by missteps that have raised big concerns among some allies and have left him far behind the former president in the polls.
DeSantis’ support has fallen to its lowest level in more than a year, with just 16% of GOP voters preferring him, down from a high of 31% in February, according to the Real Clear Politics average of national polls.
Trump, meanwhile, has surged to 54% support and now looks nearly unbeatable in the primary.
DeSantis’ poll numbers have dropped steadily since the end of March and, along with big staffing changes, are creating the impression of a campaign stuck in a downward spiral, with an upcoming debate on Aug. 23 a pivotal test.
“It’s got to be discouraging that DeSantis, as he has mounted an actual campaign, his numbers haven’t improved,” said Kyle Kondick, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
DeSantis has tried to reboot, shedding staff to curtail costs, doing more interviews with mainstream media outlets and campaigning aggressively in early voting states. He replaced his campaign manager Tuesday, turning to a trusted aide in the governor’s office to try and reverse the decline.
Hyped as "DeFuture" on a November cover of the New York Post following his dominating 19-point reelection victory, the narrative around DeSantis lately has been one of underperformance. There is a sense that he may have missed his opportunity.
No presidential candidate who has trailed by 20 points or more at this stage in the primary has ever won, according to a New York Times analysis of races over the last half century.
“Ron DeSantis has had a terrible summer,” said GOP campaign consultant Alex Conant, who served as the spokesman for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign in 2016. “The bad headlines beget more bad headlines. … It’s easy for presidential campaigns to get stuck in a negative cycle, it’s hard to pull out of them.”
DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said there is a "long line" of people "who have written off Ron DeSantis in the past and been proven wrong" and argued Florida's governor "is the only candidate in the race who can beat Joe Biden and implement the agenda we need to reverse this country's decline and revive its future."
"This primary is a two-man race between Gov. DeSantis and a man running in 2024 on the things he promised to do in 2016 and failed to do," Griffin said.
New message needed?
Among the warning signs the DeSantis’ campaign is in meltdown mode: His largest donor recently told Reuters that he won’t contribute anymore money unless the candidate moderates his approach and attracts other big donors.
"He does need to shift to get to moderates. He'll lose if he doesn't. ... Extremism isn't going to get you elected," said Robert Bigelow, who contributed $20 million to Never Back Down.
Culverhouse agrees with that assessment.
An independent who leans Republican but is more moderate on social issues, Culverhouse had reservations about DeSantis’ culture war crusade in Florida but decided to donate anyway, seeing him as a better leader than Trump and somebody who would be strong on foreign affairs.
Instead, Culverhouse has been dismayed that DeSantis has continued to battle on issues of race and LGBTQ rights, most recently defending Florida’s Black history standards against criticism of a passage stating slaves benefited by learning valuable skills.
“I believed once he ran for president somebody would explain to him you gotta drop this crap,” said Culverhouse, who wants to see DeSantis focus more on "world affairs and strengthening our military."
Switching campaign managers is something Culverhouse supports, but the campaign message is just as important.
There is little sign of DeSantis moderating, though, despite pressure from some donors. He is running to the right of Trump on everything from abortion to guns and immigration.
Iowa Hail Mary
DeSantis’ strategy centers around a strong performance in Iowa, the first contest on the GOP nominating calendar, and he is touting his conservative views as he courts the state’s large contingent of evangelical voters.
James Uthmeier, DeSantis’ new campaign manager, is viewed as a staunch conservative who was instrumental in helping to pass Florida’s new ban on abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, typically around six weeks of pregnancy.
Underdog candidates have used Iowa a springboard in the past. Former President Barack Obama’s campaign caught fire after he won Iowa in 2008, and conservatives such as Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz also parlayed caucus victories into more robust national campaigns that ultimately fizzled.
“The best-case scenario, historically speaking, you could come up with for DeSantis is something akin to what Obama did in 2008,” Kondick said. “Obama was pretty far behind in national polling, although Iowa was much closer at this point, and he sort of used Iowa as a launching pad for his candidacy.”
Yet while DeSantis is performing better in Iowa than nationally, he still trails Trump by 24 points in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of Iowa Republicans.
Clark University Political Science Professor Robert Boatright, who has written multiple books about primary elections, said it’s difficult to compare this presidential primary to past ones.
The dynamics of GOP presidential primaries have changed significantly over the years, especially in the Trump era. Trump ended years of party insiders and establishment figures elevating their consensus pick to the nomination.
“There’s really no Republican playbook anymore,” Boatright said.
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Indictment wild card
Trump’s legal problems also are unprecedented, another reason Boatright believes it’s hard to make predictions about this primary.
“At this point it’s almost impossible to imagine Donald Trump not winning the early primaries, he’s got such a tremendous lead over all of his opponents, but it’s also hard to image Donald Trump not being convicted of anything,” Boatright said.
DeSantis remains in second place in nearly every poll – a recent New Hampshire survey had him tied with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for second place in that state – and currently is the likely frontrunner if Trump’s legal troubles catch up with him.
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Yet DeSantis has slid far enough in the polls that he’s in danger of being overtaken by other contenders, making this a particularly dangerous moment for his campaign as the first debate approaches.
“The debates are going to be critically important to DeSantis, especially the first debate,” Conant said. “If he can get a bounce out of the first debate he could potentially turn things around.”
A bad debate performance for DeSantis would provide an opening for a lower tier candidate to overtake him.
Culverhouse believes DeSantis needs to go “straight at Trump” to stop his slide in the polls, but he’s under no illusions about the political difficulties involved in turning around the campaign.
“He’s got a tough row to hoe,” Culverhouse said.
Zac Anderson is Sarasota Herald-Tribune political editor and the Paste BN Network-Florida reporter covering the DeSantis campaign. Email him at zac.anderson@heraldtribune.com