H e’s younger, prettier and speaks in complete, comprehensible sentences. And he speaks directly to former President Donald Trump’s rock-solid base — which is showing a few cracks.
As reported by Politico, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis beat out Trump in a straw poll of attendees at last weekend’s Western Conservative Summit in Denver. Among the participants, 71% want the governor to run for president in 2024; Trump came in at an 67%. And Texas Sen. Ted “Have one door into and out of the school” Cruz? He lagged at 28%.
Florida’s governor bested Trump at last year’s conference, too. Although straw polls are far from being a scientific or accurate measure of the overall electorate, they show that DeSantis’ support among core voters is growing.
DeSantis is Trump’s creation. The mentor remains a force in the Republican Party — hell, he is the Republican Party — anointing candidates for Congress and still bloviating, untruthfully, about his election loss in 2020. But DeSantis, the mentee, is doing in Florida what Trump could not, except through reversible executive orders. He is wielding direct power over policy, enshrining conservative values in the law.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
With singular ambition — and a malleable Republican Legislature — he has intimidated, handcuffed or struck down anything or anyone who doesn’t sit right with him or the voters he needs to win in the 2024 Republican primary: Disney’s support for gay rights; Black representation in Congress; the truth of Black history and the present-day experiences of Blacks and other minorities; LGBTQ+ existence; women’s continued fight for reproductive rights. Gun-control advocates. And in excoriating Democrats’ alleged socialist leanings and supposed indoctrination, he is employing the same autocratic methods he decries.
According to the investigative and corporate-accountability newsletter Seeking Rents, DeSantis is hellbent on tightening his grip on public universities; strengthening his authority to remove independently elected school board members and state’s attorneys; clamping down on citizen campaigns to amend the state Constitution; and stripping oversight authority from the state’s independently elected Cabinet members.
Americans who fled dictatorships of all ideologies should see where this is headed. Yet many of them are among his — and Trump’s — most ardent supporters, and eating it up.
DeSantis’ poll numbers clearly are the result of his carefully cultivated moves to gain the national stage. He deployed law enforcement from Florida to Texas to help stem the tide of migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, then paid agents a photo-oppable visit. He reopened the state during the coronavirus pandemic earlier than blue states. And though his covid policies put so many people in danger, he still looked like a boss.
Last weekend’s straw poll results, according to Politico, come after the results of a University of Nevada, Reno, survey found Florida’s governor neck-and-neck with Trump there. Nevada voters were asked to rate potential 2024 candidates. DeSantis received the highest favorability score of any Republican with all voters — 48% compared to Trump’s 42% — but Trump beat DeSantis when just Republicans were counted.
DeSantis clearly is a player for a residence far grander than the Governor’s Mansion. Trump, indeed, has some competition. As a politician, Florida’s governor is more skilled, more experienced, more palatable and, possibly, more dangerous.