The 2024 election season is a stone’s throw away and among Republican circles, all eyes are on former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump’s next run at the White House was all but a foregone conclusion before he announced his candidacy shortly after the 2022 midterm elections. The jury is still out on DeSantis’ intentions, but it seems almost certainly that he will also throw his hat in the ring.
Around the time of Trump’s announcement, he began pre-emptively lobbing rhetorical grenades at the governor, referring to him for the first time as “Ron DeSanctimonious” at a rally. Since then, the former president has been taking potshots at DeSantis much to the consternation of much of his base, who adores the governor almost as much as Trump.
Most recently, Trump continued his verbal assault by dredging up an old leftist narrative that the activist media used against DeSantis. He resurrected allegations that the governor behaved inappropriately with high school girls when he was a teacher in his early 20s. Trump also appears to have coined a new nickname for his potential rival: Meatball Ron.
On Saturday, Trump took to Truth Social to tell the world that despite the rumors, he is not going to refer to DeSantis by that bizarre moniker. “I will never call Ron DeSanctimonious ‘Meatball’ Ron, as the Fake News is insisting I will,” he wrote. He has also floated the label “Shutdown Ron” and tried to link him to members of the Republican establishment like former House Speaker Paul Ryan and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
So far, DeSantis has largely ignored Trump’s attacks, seemingly preferring to take the high road. When asked during a press conference about the high school allegations, the governor didn’t take the bait.
“I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” he responded. “That’s how I spend my time. I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.”
So far, DeSantis’ strategy has worked. Instead of getting in the mud, the governor has simply ignored Trump like a parent ignores a child having a tantrum. The governor’s approach has made it appear as if he is living rent-free in Trump’s head while not even giving him a second thought. Moreover, while much of the voting base still reveres the former president, they are not happy with his onslaught of attacks against DeSantis, who is also well-loved.
Another benefit for the governor is that it delays what will be a vicious battle between the two men. Right now, he can continue shoring up goodwill with the base before he is ready to go on the warpath. The strategy will continue working for him – but not for much longer.
The fact of the matter is that DeSantis can’t afford to keep pretending his possible primary opponent doesn’t exist. In fact, polling shows that Trump’s attacks might be landing. Shortly after the congressional elections last November, polling showed the governor leading Trump by a not-so-thin margin. But now, a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll that was released to The Hill shows DeSantis trailing Trump significantly:
A new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll released Friday exclusively to The Hill shows Trump leading DeSantis 46 percent to 23 percent. That marks a 5-point drop in support for DeSantis since last month, when he trailed Trump by 20 percentage points in the same poll.
Perhaps more alarming for DeSantis, however, is his standing in a hypothetical primary field without Trump. Thirty-nine percent of GOP voters said they would back DeSantis for the Republican nomination if Trump was not in the race, but that’s still 10 points lower than where he stood in January.
It’s almost getting to the point where DeSantis is going to have to address Trump one way or another. The question centers on what kind of response the governor should run with. This will be critical as DeSantis will have to figure out how to attack his opponent without alienating the base. He cannot afford to keep letting Trump’s attacks go unanswered, but he also cannot afford to strike back in a way that threatens his popularity with Republican voters.
One of the reasons DeSantis became popular was because he is willing to take the fight to Democratic politicians and members of the activist media. Like Trump, he cultivated a rather pugilistic relationship with the press, which is thoroughly reviled by the conservative base. But he has not yet been tested against a brawler like Trump.
“No Republican has ever emerged from an exchange with Donald Trump looking stronger, so the natural tendency is to deflect his attacks and avoid confrontation,” Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist, told the New York Times.
“That’s easy to do, and maybe even wise when his barbs are confined to Truth Social,” Donovan added. “The question is what happens when DeSantis finds himself on a debate stage opposite Trump, and G.O.P. voters want to see whether they are getting what they were promised.”
“It’s a really tough situation for DeSantis,” said Tommy Vietor, a Democratic strategist who worked for Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. “If he starts punching at Trump, he’s going to anger a lot of the people he needs to vote for him.”
He continued: “if you are viewed as weak and cower in response to attacks from Trump, that will be seen as a proxy for how you will be seen as a Republican nominee and how you’ll be as president.”
It will be a delicate dance that DeSantis will have to navigate, even if he has not yet announced his candidacy for the White House. But he better figure it out quickly as he does not have much more time left.
