Never work with animals, children or egotistical space billionaires. There’s a lesson in there that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida learned the hard way when he used Elon Musk’s Twitter Spaces social media platform to announce his run for US president.
Thousands of listeners were greeted with long silences, odd snatches of music and the sound of Musk, would-be kingmaker of the American right, muttering that the “the servers are straining somewhat”. The glitch was soon being described as a “DeSaster”, one of the most embarrassing campaign fiascos in memory.
No one was more gleeful than Donald Trump, who regards DeSantis as his principal rival for the Republican nomination in 2024. But for those in the party who crave an alternative to the disgraced former president, it fueled disquiet about his putative rival’s big match temperament – and encouraged them to seek other options. No one is writing DeSantis off, but he enters the race weakened and in a wide, scattered field of lesser candidates that Trump now dominates.
“DeSantis’s launch was awful; Trump’s comments are nuts,” tweeted Bill Kristol, a founding director of Defending Democracy Together who served in the Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush administrations. “Doesn’t every normal Republican elected official and donor think the party can (and should!) do better?”
The Grand Old Party has been transformed since the moment that Trump staged a comparatively lo-tech campaign launch by trundling down an escalator at Trump Tower in New York in 2015. The celebrity businessman soon energised grassroots supporters, shook the Republican establishment and prevailed in the primary election against divided opposition.
Eight years on, Trump, now 76 and facing myriad criminal investigations, has again established himself as the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination. He has spent the months since he launched his own campaign working to destroy the once-ascendant DeSantis, 44, who has tried to remain above the fray.
In the end Trump did not succeed in knocking the man he brands “Ron DeSanctimonious” out of the race but did sow doubts about his record, personality and loyalty. The governor did himself no favors by giving mixed messages on US support for Ukraine, picking a thankless fight with Disney and failing to impress during in-person meetings.
Last month, when DeSantis went overseas on a “trade mission” and met business leaders in London, the Politico website quoted attendees as saying he “looked bored” and “stared at his feet” and describing him as “horrendous” and “low wattage”. One reportedly said: “It felt really a bit like we were watching a state-level politician. I wouldn’t be surprised if [people in attendance] came out thinking ‘that’s not the guy.’”
Far from closing the gap on Trump during a book tour, DeSantis instead saw it widen to 30 percentage points or more in some opinion polls. Some of his potential donors have expressed buyers’ remorse and put their financial backing on hold.
Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, said: “Everybody thought it was a two-horse race; it’s a one-horse race. The Republican establishment, the Republican donors, Republican media, everybody wants Trump gone so they’ve all put their hopes in DeSantis and now that’s gotten pretty shaky over the last four months because the more people get to know him, they don’t like him.”
Walsh, who challenged Trump in the 2020 primaries, added: “You’re going to see a bunch of people get in now because they think DeSantis is weak and so they want to be the number two guy.”
This week’s shambolic campaign launch only reinforced the view that DeSantis was overhyped as a “Trump slayer” and peaked too soon. But there is a constituency of Republicans unwilling to return to twice-impeached, once-indicted Trump, especially after disappointing midterm election results. They hunger for another choice to take on Joe Biden.
Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times in Iowa, which holds the first Republican caucuses early next year, said: “I was talking with a moderate retired Republican schoolteacher just this morning from western Iowa and she doesn’t like the meanness of Trump and DeSantis, so she’s looking for an alternative. Whether that’s Tim Scott or Asa Hutchinson or Chris Sununu, who knows?”
Ambitious Republicans smell blood. This week saw Tim Scott, the only Black Republican senator, throw his hat in the ring with a brand of optimism that contrasts with Trump and DeSantis’s dark rhetoric. But Scott, 57, has only 1% of support among registered Republicans, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
He joined fellow his South Carolinian Nikki Haley, a former governor of the state and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. The 51-year-old has emphasised her relative youth compared with Biden and Trump as well as her background as the daughter of two Indian immigrants. She attracts about 4% support among Republican voters.
Notably DeSantis, Scott and Haley have been reluctant to directly denounce Trump, preferring to let allies do the dirty work or make oblique remarks about the need to end a culture of losing or embrace greatness rather than grievance. Their reticence is a striking insight into Trump’s lock on the party’s base.
But one candidate, the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, has been more forthright in calling for Trump to drop out of the race to deal with his hush money criminal case in New York. Hutchinson, 72, has touted his experience leading the deeply conservative state but has limited name recognition nationwide.
Other potential contenders include Mike Pence, 63, a former vice-president who broke with Trump over the January 6 insurrection; Chris Christie, 60, a former governor of New Jersey who is a pugnacious Trump critic; and Chris Sununu, 48, the governor of New Hampshire who has said he does not believe Trump can beat Biden.
Glenn Youngkin, 56, a hedge fund manager turned Virginia governor who has made much of parents’ rights in schools, is said to be reconsidering a White House bid after previously ruling it out. Meanwhile Vivek Ramaswamy, 37, a former biotechnology investor and executive, is already waging a quixotic campaign.
The bigger the field, the more that Trump stands to benefit. As in 2016, a bevy of candidates may well divide the anti-Trump vote while his base holds fast. It could put pressure on DeSantis to set himself apart by taking off the gloves against the former president, a risky strategy that backfired for fellow Floridians Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in 2016.
Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: “The only way Ron DeSantis peels off Trump voters is if he fights as hard and dirty as Trump because they’re looking for a champion who will break boundaries, break the rules and really go for it. That’s what they’re looking for: are you willing to go toe to toe and stand up to Trump in every way?”
DeSantis is still relatively well placed. He was polling in double digits and boasted of a war chest of more than $110m before he even entered the race. His team said he brought in $8.2m in the first 24 hours after his campaign launch, breaking a record of $6.3m held by Biden.
DeSantis can also point to a list of rightwing legislative accomplishments to make the case that he is effectively Trump without the drama. His opposition to coronavirus pandemic restrictions and his “anti-woke” agenda guarantee favorable coverage from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News network and other rightwing media.
He has many friends in the Florida Republican party despite Trump having made the state his adopted home. Christian Ziegler, the state party chairperson, said he had a “great relationship” with both men. “The organisation is going to stay neutral and I encourage all our party leaders to do the same because, no matter who wins the primary, we’ve got to make sure that we go get the voters of whoever loses to cross over and shake hands and vote for whoever our Republican nominee is.
“We’ve got to keep our eye on what the reality is and what the real goal is. The real enemy here are the Democrats and what they’re trying to do to our kids, our communities, our state, our country.”
Democrats, for their part, exulted in DeSantis’s campaign launch debacle and give his candidacy short shrift.
Antjuan Seawright, a party strategist based in Columbia, South Carolina, said: “He has a math problem, meaning he is always going to be considered a runner-up to Trump, who is the leading candidate in their party. He has a policy problem because in many cases he’s trying to out-Trump Trump when it comes to policy.
“He has a political problem: he has not had his hood checked or his tyres kicked outside of Florida and so he’s never been battle-tested. He has a constituency problem because with so many people in the race, where does his following come from?”
Seawright added: “The Republican primary, quite frankly, has calcified around the idea of nominating Trump again.”
