WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump is girding to take a swing at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on one of the things his chief rival is proudest of: his handling of his state’s economy.
In conversations with Trump campaign advisers and allies, the strategy they’ve developed is to bury DeSantis’s expected presidential campaign before it begins. On Friday, DeSantis spoke at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary summit outside Washington, and Trump was to address Republicans later Friday in DeSantis’ home state.
Trump, according to his allies, will use the occasion to remind local officials how he turned some swing states red in 2016. He’ll speak about how he plans to campaign against Biden in 2024 and also will try to muddy up the brightest parts of the governor’s record.
Shortly after DeSantis’s speech, the Trump campaign sent out a lengthy critique of the governor’s economic record, hitting him for the high cost of housing, fuel and other basics.
“The real DeSantis record is one of misery and despair. He has left a wake of destruction all across Florida and people are hurting because he has spent more time playing public relations games instead of actually doing the hard-work needed to improve the lives of the people he represents,” Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, said in a statement.
A new Wall Street Journal poll Friday showed Trump gaining on his opponent. In a head-to-head matchup it points to Trump having 51% of support among Republican primary voters, compared with 38% for DeSantis.
“With Trump surging in the polls having a massive amount of focus, this is the opportunity to reengage previous supporters and lock in new supporters before DeSantis even gets his plane off the ground,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in an interview.
The Trump-DeSantis clash unfolds as President Joe Biden is preparing to announce his reelection campaign as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter.
DeSantis’s allies insist he hasn’t decided whether to run. But polls show that he is Trump’s most viable challenger, and the former president is treating him like a full-fledged opponent. Paid advertisements by a Trump-allied super political action committee have assailed DeSantis, 44, for his support while in Congress of cuts to Medicare and Social Security, while Trump himself has mocked the governor in speeches, videos and social media posts.
Behind the scenes, Trump, 76, and his aides have reached out to GOP lawmakers across the country to lock up support both in DeSantis’s own backyard and in early voting states.
DeSantis, to the chagrin of some supporters and would-be donors, has barely fought back. An allied super PAC began an ad campaign last weekend criticizing Trump, and DeSantis picked up a single endorsement this week from Rep. Laurel Lee, a Florida Republican.
Trump won the backing of six Florida House members just this week, and his team is delighted that a majority of the state’s lawmakers now support the former president rather than their own governor.
Trump’s lead over DeSantis in the RealClearPolitics average of polls has widened to about 29 percentage points, from 13 percentage points in January. Some donors who’d hoped DeSantis would displace Trump are holding onto their money as the former president pummels his presumptive challenger.
“It’s working, and you don’t need to look any further than the totality of the polls. Trump has momentum,” said Florida-based Republican strategist Ford O’Connell, who served as a surrogate for the Trump White House and 2020 campaign.
But Dave Abrams, a spokesperson for the DeSantis political team, said, “the inordinate amount of time spent attacking Governor DeSantis reveals his strength – and others’ weakness.”
The super PAC supporting the governor has recently hired staff in early voting states and sent out mailers introducing DeSantis, his military service, his family and his political record.
If Trump succeeds at weakening DeSantis politically — or even dissuading him from a run — the former president would establish himself as the presumed Republican nominee for 2024. Many Republican strategists think that would spell trouble for the party. The former president remains deeply unpopular among American voters and faces criminal charges in New York and other legal perils.
None of that matters to Trump, who is showing that he’ll treat his 2024 primary rivals just as ruthlessly as the ones he dispatched in 2016. He’s combined personal attacks with more conventional criticism of the governor’s record, zeroing in, for instance, on his feud with the Walt Disney Co.
The upside for DeSantis is that Trump’s almost singular focus is helping to solidify his standing as the former president’s most viable challenger. No other Republican already in the race or believed to be considering a run registers better than single-digit support in polls.
“It’s clearly not driving him back down into the third tier, and as long as he sort of hangs in there as the obvious alternative, it doesn’t matter if he’s down 20 or down 30 or down 15 as long as he’s double-digits ahead of everybody else when game time comes,” said Brad Coker, managing director at Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy in Florida.
And attacks so early in the campaign might not be remembered by voters — though they could cumulatively have effect over time, said Dave Carney, a Republican consultant in New Hampshire. DeSantis’s response will be critical, he said.
“Can DeSantis take a punch? Sure,” Carney said. “Can he take a beat-down? We’ll find out. Then he can do a little beat-down on his own.”
