DeSantis Won Over Florida. Now He Has the Rest of the US to Convince
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(Bloomberg) -- The man regarded by many Republicans as the party’s future received rock-star treatment in Las Vegas over the weekend -- complete with a stage rush by adoring fans.
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Ron DeSantis’s appearance before the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual meeting -- less than two weeks after a blowout re-election win as Florida governor -- amplified growing calls among party faithful for him to seize the reins as party leader from former President Donald Trump.
Yet even as Republicans increasingly look to DeSantis as their best hope for 2024, there are some whispers in party circles about whether he has enough charisma and political acumen to take his show national, wrestle the torch from Trump and win the White House.
The governor hinted at his ambition in his Nov. 19 Las Vegas remarks, hours after Trump addressed the group remotely via satellite, painting a picture of his Florida leadership as a country-wide model for Republican governance.
Should DeSantis officially jump into the race, he would be aiming to become the first governor to win the GOP nomination since Texas’s George W. Bush did it two decades ago.
While DeSantis won re-election by more than 1.5 million votes -- one of the biggest GOP landslides in the midterms -- by fighting Covid lockdowns and culture wars, it’s unclear whether that agenda will be embraced in states that supported more moderate candidates. Polls paint a mixed portrait of DeSantis’s popularity outside of Florida, with most showing him a clear second choice to Trump in hypothetical match-ups.
Former New Jersey GOP Governor Chris Christie, another potential 2024 presidential aspirant, outlined the hurdles that DeSantis faces.
“When all you’ve done is run statewide in a red state like Florida, that presents certain challenges but not nearly the number of challenges you’re going to have to endure running in a contested primary for president of the United States, having done that I know a little bit about it,” Christie said in an interview Monday during a fundraiser for Lincoln Center, chaired by Point72 Asset Management’s Steve Cohen and others in the alternative investment industry.
“And so, we’ll see, he could wind up being the runaway nominee or he could wind up like Scott Walker did dropping off in September before the primaries start,” he said.
Walker, the former Wisconsin governor, entered the 2016 Republican presidential race with great fanfare after building a national profile battling public-sector unions but ended his campaign only two months later under the glare of national media coverage.
People who know DeSantis say he can be brusque, with little patience for the schmoozing that typifies national politics. At events, DeSantis prefers tight scheduling, with little built in for working the crowd when he’s done, according to four former aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.
DeSantis may not appear comfortable at political functions, they say, but he’s got a long track record of chatting up normal Floridians in smaller settings, like shops, restaurants, factories and homes. His social media feed is full of photos of such scenes when he’s on the road.
Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who has advised DeSantis on culture war messaging, cast the governor’s lack of interest in retail politics as endearing to voters.
“I’ve heard some kind of quiet criticism that he doesn’t glad-hand donors, and he doesn’t. He’s not a schmoozer, and he’s not engaging in small talk,” Rufo said. “But I think that that’s also his strength because he is focused on the substance.”
A Harvard Law-trained attorney and ex-Navy lawyer, DeSantis is known for his strong work ethic and voracious appetite for details and data to buttress anything he’s proposing. It’s a contrast with Trump’s tendency to rely more on instinct than facts.
The governor lured conservatives by pushing the kind of hot-button issues that the former president brought to the fore, attacking illegal immigration, going after local mask and vaccine mandates and questioning elections. He engaged in a highly-publicized fight with Walt Disney Co. for its support of transgender rights.
That’s allowed DeSantis to raise big money for his re-election and start building a national donor network for a presidential run. More than half the $180 million DeSantis raised for his re-election came from outside Florida.
Citadel’s billionaire founder Ken Griffin, for example, said he hoped the “three-time loser” Trump would make way for DeSantis, who he’s financially backed.
But the former president who recently announced that he’s waging a third White House campaign has trained early fire on his would-be heir apparent. Trump escalated attacks on DeSantis alongside the roll-out of his Nov. 15 announcement, pointing to polls that show him drubbing DeSantis in a hypothetical match-up and nicknaming him Ron “DeSanctimonious.”
DeSantis has so far not directly engaged him. But in response to reporters’ questions about the broadsides during a recent press conference he said people should “check the scoreboard” from the midterms, a jab at the poor showings of Trump’s handpicked candidates and his resounding win.
“He’s good, but he’s still not as savvy as Trump, and he’s not as independent as Trump,” Gloria Birnbaum, 78, a retiree from Delray Beach, Florida, said of DeSantis.
A spokesman for DeSantis declined to comment, saying he’s focused on being governor.
“The job of a leader is not to stick your finger in the wind and try to contort yourself to wherever a public opinion may be trending in one given moment,” he said in his speech in Las Vegas, triggering applause.
Other supporters hinted at the inroads DeSantis made in Miami-Dade County, a historically Democratic bastion.
“I have friends who self-described themselves as progressive liberals at one time and would never describe themselves as conservative or Republicans, and they voted for him,” said Bridget Ziegler, one of the 30 school board candidates the governor endorsed this year.
Polls conducted since the midterms show that DeSantis has either gained ground or usurped Trump as the top choice among Republican voters. But a July Quinnipiac University survey showed that 35% of Americans simply don’t have an opinion about the Florida governor because they don’t know enough about him.
As DeSantis concluded remarks to a standing ovation at the Republican Jewish Coalition, his guitar-heavy theme song, “Sweet Florida,” blared over speakers, an ode to his leadership written by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s lead singer Johnny Van Zant, and one that takes jabs at Anthony Fauci and President Joe Biden.
He bent down to shake hands and sign baseball caps before exiting stage left -- just like a presidential candidate at a rally.
--With assistance from Jennifer Jacobs, Christian Hall and Amanda Gordon.
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