Much has been made of former president Donald Trump’s recent surge in Republican primary polls and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s resulting dip in those same surveys.
Trump announced his campaign in November after the GOP’s disappointing midterm performance, which many pinned on the long shadow the former president cast over the party. Since then, Trump has launched ceaseless attacks on DeSantis, casting him as disloyal, incompetent and even trying out at least three nicknames — Ron DeSanctimonious, Meatball Ron, and Rob DeSantis — in an effort to dissuade his ex-ally from even running.
This effort continued over the weekend when someone — likely from Team Trump — leaked video of DeSantis engaged in debate prep during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign. In one video, DeSantis considers how to draw distinctions between himself and Trump without “pissing off” his supporters. In another, he expresses his desire to say “f*** this” when it came to his opponent’s characterization of himself as racist.
The videos were seemingly meant to make DeSantis look contrived, but have been widely recognized across the right as consisting of anodyne discussions campaign strategy as well as human reactions to the peaks and valleys of the campaign trail.
Even Matt Gaetz and Byron Donalds — two Trump loyalists representing the Sunshine State in Congress — have blasted the leaks as “hackery” and “low class.” In a tweet, Gaetz even hinted at the videos’ provenance: “Though I prefer Trump for President (bigly), the release of these videos by the person operating the camera is disloyal hackery that I do not abide. Staffers who leak on the candidates they’ve done work for deserve the reputations they get.”
Of note: Trump’s de facto campaign manager Susie Wiles ran DeSantis’s 2018 campaign, and would have been one of only a few known people with access to the leaked footage.
The Trump campaign’s resorting to tactics so disreputable that its most fervent allies are denouncing them not only reflects an understanding of the fragility of its position, but a misunderstanding of its recent success.
Those at the top of Trump’s campaign have access to the same state-level polling showing DeSantis’s strength in key states that the rest of us do, and know that DeSantis’s impending entrance will change the dynamic of the race. Soon, the Florida governor will be able to go on offense, and there is not guarantee that Trump’s lead will be able to withstand targeted attacks from a formidable challenger.
The use of every possible avenue of attack, meanwhile, may be the purest expression of Donald Trump’s id, but it fails as an evidence-based campaign strategy. After all, when Trump declared his candidacy on Nov. 15, he held a lead of more than 31 points over DeSantis in the RealClearPolitics polling average. By March 31, after months of dragging DeSantis’s name through the mud, that lead had been cut in half.
It was only after that day, when it was reported for the first time that Trump would face prosecution from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, that Trump’s numbers spiked and DeSantis’s fell. It was the political stink around Bragg’s work — and the anger it elicited — that strengthened Trump’s position, not his scattershot broadsides at DeSantis.
The effort to turn a poor reflection on a staffer into a poor reflection on the soon-to-be candidate is itself a poor reflection on Team Trump’s inability to land a punch. Candidate, campaign, and various surrogates have spent months trying to define DeSantis without any success. In fact, it took a paradoxically fortuitous twist of fate just to rescue the Trump campaign from its flailing position.
About nine months before the first ballots are cast and without DeSantis on the campaign trail, this failure has not yet proven to be a fatal flaw. Perhaps the former president will be able to ride the wave of his reputation with the Republican base to the nomination. But it’s also possible that the story of the pre-primary is much more grim for the Trump campaign than it would appear; while it’s equipped ride helpful waves, it’s not apparent that it’s ready to weather treacherous ones.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
