WASHINGTON — Ron DeSantis’ critics have spent weeks knocking his national political rollout, attacking his operation’s slow-motion pace and raising doubts about whether he’s already fallen irrevocably behind Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
Now, even some of the Florida governor’s own early supporters are starting to question his strategy.
In interviews with more than 20 Republican strategists, DeSantis allies and current and former elected officials, many expressed a growing anxiety about DeSantis’ approach, fretting that a politician who started the year with so much momentum is starting to falter before he even formally becomes a presidential candidate.
Their overarching concern: The Florida Republican has already waited too long to launch, leaving him ill-prepared to defend against the former president’s bludgeoning attacks and laggingin the type of on-the-ground organizing critical in states with an early nominating contest.
“Politics is about seizing the moment — his moment was in December and January — and the door for the Florida governor is closing with every day that he doesn’t formally launch a campaign,” said Dennis Lennox, a Republican operator who helped organize a letter on behalf of Michigan state GOP lawmakers supporting DeSantis. “DeSantis can win this race, but he needs to get in now.”
Lennox, like other Republicans interviewed for this story, remains optimistic that the governor can regain momentum, emphasizing that there’s still time to right the ship at this very early stage of the primary. Other Republican strategists who remain neutral in the 2024 GOP primary offered even harsher assessments about DeSantis’ effort so far this year but also usually hastened to add they think he remains a strong potential candidate.
“If I were one of his advisers, I’d be like ‘Dude, what are you waiting for?,’” Mike Murphy, a Michigan sheriff and DeSantis backer, told McClatchyDC in an interview. “The shots are coming regardless, whether you’re a presidential candidate or in the exploratory phase or dropping hints… I would’ve already announced.”
The frustration adds further scrutiny to the decision from DeSantis — who last year won a landslide reelection victory in a once-competitive battleground state — to prioritize Florida’s new legislative session this winter and spring over more concerted attempts to begin laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign.
And it comes at a moment when the Florida governor, overshadowed by Trump’s criminal indictment and facing a steady stream of criticism from rivals, has slipped noticeably in early polls of a hypothetical GOP primary.
A Monmouth University national Republican primary poll tracked a 27-point swing in Trump’s direction between December and March. While some surveys last fall showed DeSantis leading Trump in the kick-off caucus state of Iowa, a string of more recent data has the former president holding a single-digit lead.
Just this week, the number of Florida Republican members of Congress announcing their support for Trump grew to four, after Rep. Cory Mills formally backed the former president. DeSantis has two congressional backers — Rep. Chip Roy of Texas and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — but more elected Republicans may be reluctant to climb aboard unless his trajectory improves.
“Day in and day out, he’s going in the wrong direction,” said David Urban, a longtime Republican operative who previously worked for Trump but is remaining neutral this primary. “There’s a gap that’s growing. So I think there is a pressure to start making more appearances in these states.”
Some DeSantis defenders acknowledge the frustration even as they insist the governor remains on track if and when he decides to run for president.
“I’m not surprised to hear that because just from my own experience, people who supported me, they want their guy to be out there swinging, and they don’t like seeing him with his hands tied behind his back while he’s getting punched,” said Lou Barletta, a former congressman from Pennsylvania who has publicly urged DeSantis to run for president. “As a supporter, they think you need to fight.”
But the governor, Barletta added, has said he’ll wait until the legislative session ends before he decides whether to run for president — a decision the former lawmaker, once an ardent Trump supporter, says is evidence of why he likes the governor in the first place.
“It’s refreshing to see someone who cares about governing but doesn’t care about getting elected to the next office first. And that’s what makes DeSantis different,” Barletta said. “The fact he’s not listening to other people makes me like him even more.”
Other Republican supporters dismissed the criticism as a product of over-eager gadflys and unrepresentative of the broader GOP electorate.
“My constituents in Northern Kentucky near Cincinnati and in the rural and suburban areas along the Ohio River don’t pay attention to the political chattering class,” said Massie, who issued a statement through a super PAC backing DeSantis, Never Back Down. “The folks I represent are more concerned about the disaster the Biden administration has created. They see a fighter in Governor DeSantis who can put this country back on its feet with conservative principles.”
A DeSantis official declined to comment for this story.
DeSantis has said he will make a decision about his political future after Florida’s legislative session, which is expected to end sometime next month. There’s also the hovering question of whether DeSantis is waiting for the Legislature to change state law to permit him to remain governor as he pursues the White House.
In the meantime, he has embarked on a nationwide book tour that has taken him to several key political backgrounds, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan. He is scheduled to visit Ohio and New Hampshire this week and South Carolina the week after.
Anxiety about DeSantis’ political approach falls into two categories: That the governor appears unready to push back against relentless criticism from Trump, who has already unleashed a fury of sometimes baseless attacks, and that he has yet to start building an early state infrastructure.
“While there are a lot of things that can be done by entities besides the campaign, there is no substitute for the candidate himself,” said Lennox, the GOP consultant from Michigan. “DeSantis-supporting Republicans are getting frustrated because their entreaties are going unanswered. Some have literally flown down to Florida in the hopes of getting a response from someone.”
The problem isn’t simply that the governor’s political operation has a light presence in states with an early nominating contest, including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, according to five political operatives interviewed by McClatchyDC. They say the political operation lacks even a single point of contact in many states, leaving many would-be supporters, including donors and political operatives, unable to help and scratching their heads about the state of what they expected to be a major presidential campaign in waiting.
There’s “some frustration” among potential supporters about DeSantis’ presence in the Palmetto State, acknowledged Republican state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, who is hosting an event with the governor in South Carolina next week as part of his book tour.
Kimbrell said he thinks the state’s Republican voters remain excited about the governor and pointed to his coming appearance in the state as proof that he’s doing the necessary work to prepare for a possible campaign.
It should be the first trip of many, the state senator added.
“He needs to understand you gotta come down here, press the flesh, go to the diners, go to the party events, and make sure people see you and like you,” Kimbrell said. “He’s going to have to spend some time here.”
Building on-the-ground infrastructure, of course, isn’t the only way to prepare for a campaign. Never Back Down, the super PAC backing DeSantis, already raised $30 million in its first three weeks of existence.
The super PAC has also started raising money, subject to Federal Election Commission regulations, that it could transfer to DeSantis’ presidential campaign account should he decide to run for president, according to an official from the group.
Never Back Down will begin running its first nationwide TV ad backing DeSantis on Monday, a source with the group confirmed Thursday. The super PAC is putting more than $1 million behind the spot.
But Trump-aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. started specifically targeting the governor two weeks ago, running an ad criticizing the governor over entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
It’s part of a broader challenge facing DeSantis, who has dealt with a barrage of attacks from the former president and his allies in recent months. The governor has, by and large, ignored the criticisms, saying he is focused on governing Florida and delivering conservative policy victories.
But the attacks have nonetheless prompted an open debate among some DeSantis supporters about whether the governor or his allies should respond more forcefully.
State Rep. Phil Green, one of DeSantis’ Michigan endorsers, acknowledged that while the governor has sustained a polling hit from Trump’s frontal attacks, the loss is marginal and recoverable.
“There’s an ebb and a flow and an up and a down. You would expect when the attack ads start, he would lose some support, lose some momentum,” Green said.
But he added that the clash with Trump would be a furious battle that surrogates like himself were unequipped to handle.
“The only person who can stand up to attacks and address the attacks is the candidate,” Green added.
Even as he’s attacked by Trump, however, DeSantis has also dealt with criticism from other rivals, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. A memo from the Haley campaign released this week, citing his responses to questions about the Russia-Ukraine war, declared that the Florida governor had made “one misstep after another” and was “not ready for prime time.”
Erin Perrine, spokeswoman for Never Back Down, said in a statement that the focus on DeSantis from other candidates shows “they know he has the strongest potential to beat Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”
“The Never Back Down movement continues to grow in support for Governor DeSantis to become President DeSantis,” Perrine said. “We clearly have a field of announced Republican candidates who are worried about the potential of Governor DeSantis entering the race, and they should be.”
Michael Caputo, a former Trump aide based in Florida, said the developments over the last month have left him wondering for the first time if DeSantis will actually pull the trigger.
“The governor has got to know this race will now be a much rougher ride, not the one he had considered,” Caputo said. “Before (Trump’s) arrest I’d have said it’s absolutely certain Gov. DeSantis will get in the race. Now I’m not so sure.”
Dave Wilson, a GOP strategist in South Carolina unaffiliated with any campaign, said he understood why DeSantis has started the year the way he has, but it has started to frustrate some Republicans nonetheless.
“If you live in the world of politics, you understand why Ron DeSantis has had to focus on the legislative session in Florida,” Wilson said. “He is still governor of the state and has to do the responsibility of governing a very important state in the union.”
Wilson added: “At the same time, people in the other 49 states are wondering when are you going to kick off this anticipated campaign? And that part has lingered for what feels like just a little too long.”
