Front Burner - Where did Ron DeSantis’ campaign go wrong?

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

In January, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seemed like a real contender to win the GOP presidential nomination over former U.S. president Donald Trump. His team pitched his Florida track record, electability and “war on woke” ideals as a Trump-like candidate without the baggage. But now, just two months into his White House bid, DeSantis’s campaign is in trouble. A New York Times/Siena College poll found the Florida Governor is trailing Trump by 37 percentage points nationally. Meanwhile, the campaign has undergone a reboot, firing staff, cutting costs and reevaluating its strategy. Today, Isaac Arnsdorf, a national political reporter for the Washington Post and the author of Finish What We Started, takes us through the hype, the strategy and where the DeSantis campaign has gone wrong. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everyone, Tamara here. Before we begin, I just wanted to let you know that we've started putting the show on YouTube every day. A lot of people are listening to podcasts there, so it just made sense. And you'll still be able to find us on all of the podcast apps. But if you want to listen on YouTube,

you can find us on the CBC News channel under podcasts. All right, that's it. I hope you liked today's episode. On Friday, 13 Republican candidates for U.S. president took the stage at the Lincoln Dinner. It's an annual celebration for the Republican Party and a chance to raise campaign dollars. And with the Iowa caucuses just six months away, voters were paying attention. Hello, Iowa. I'm here to deliver a very simple message. Iowa has never had a better friend in the White House than President Donald J. Trump,

and I think we know that. In his speech, former President Donald Trump touched on election rigging, a border wall, and of course, the many, many things he accomplished as president. And I'm going quickly because we're given 10 quick minutes, so I'm going to go quickly, but we did a lot of things. It's hard to do it that quickly. But in between all of that, he also took the time to come after one of his competitors, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, or as Trump now calls him, Ron DeSanctis. Not too long ago, DeSantis was seen as a real challenger to the former president. But since then, his fortunes have taken a real turn, something Trump was more than happy to point out. In the newest echelon poll of swing states,

we're trouncing Biden by seven points. In the big new premise poll, we're beating Biden 43-39, while DeSantis is losing to Biden 33-38. In other polls, I'm leading Biden by six, seven, eight, and 11 points, while DeSantis is losing to Biden in all cases. I wouldn't take a chance on that one. Trump's not wrong about the numbers.

A New York Times and Siena College poll found the former president is crushing his rivals for the Republican nomination. While DeSantis is his nearest opponent, he's trailing Trump by 37 percentage points nationally. And his campaign is struggling. Isaac Arnsdorf is a national political reporter for The Washington Post. His book, Finish What We Started, is out in April. He's been out on the campaign trail with both DeSantis and Trump, and today he's going to take us through the DeSantis campaign, the hype, the strategy, and where it's all going wrong. Hi, Isaac. Thanks so much for doing this.

Thanks for having me. So before we get into where the DeSantis campaign got derailed, can you just remind me of the political climate back in late 2022 and early 2023 when it seemed like he could give Trump a run for his money? at Mar-a-Lago, expecting to have this big red wave that was going to sweep into power all of his endorsed candidates and basically pave the road for him to retake the White House. And that didn't happen. Most of the high-profile candidates who he endorsed lost. And then on the other side, you had Ron DeSantis, who had a landslide re-election as governor in Florida, which is supposed to be a competitive state. And there are people at his victory party chanting, two more years. The implication, obviously, being that instead of serving out his four-year term,

he would run for president. And so what you had was this sense of Trump looking like a loser and DeSantis looking like a winner. And for a lot of Republicans who were looking for a moment to turn the page on Trump and who were blaming Trump for disappointing results in not just that night, but also in 2018 and 2020, DeSantis really looked like the guy who could bring the party into a post-Trump future. Yeah, DeSantis' prospects looked much more promising back then after those midterm elections. There was this poll in January that showed 45% of registered voters preferred him over Trump. And there was a lot of hype around his potential candidacy. Ron DeSantis is emerging as a dominant force in U.S. politics.

37 Iowa state lawmakers, 99 Florida state lawmakers, and 51 New Hampshire state lawmakers have all endorsed the Florida governor for president, despite the fact he hasn't even announced he's running. Ron DeSantis has figured out a way to be a leaner, meaner version of Donald Trump. Who do you think would be the tougher competitor, Ron DeSantis or former President Trump? And how is that factoring into your decision? It'll be fun watching them take on each other.

My understanding is he was seen as kind of a candidate who offered Trump's values with more polish and less scandal. but that he would be more disciplined in office. He would be more effective at actually kind of pulling the levers of government. And yeah, there wouldn't be so many scandals. And so that kind of appealed to the type of voter who really liked Trump's policies, but didn't like all the tweets. So I want to talk about his time as governor of Florida, which might give us some insight into what a DeSantis presidency might look like. I know he made a lot of headlines for his war on woke. We have embraced freedom. We have maintained law and order.

We have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers. And we reject woke ideology. We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die. What is he like as governor and what are some

of his standout policies that he introduced? So DeSantis came off of that re-election and pretty explicitly set out to use the legislative session at the beginning of this year to form the foundation for like a springboard for launching his campaign that he was going to pass through the Republican controlled legislature, all sorts of bills that would then help make the case for what he could accomplish nationally. Probably the most controversial was a six week abortion ban since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion last year. This is one of the strictest bans in the country. Previously, DeSantis had passed a bill restricting discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms up to, I think it was fourth grade.

and gender identity in classrooms up to, I think it was fourth grade. And he extended that all the way up through 12th grade with another bill last session. He also went after companies using social responsibility and governance and environmental considerations in investment policies. I also remember hearing a lot about the way that he handled the COVID pandemic. Can you tell me a bit about that? Yeah. I mean, the reality is that DeSantis pretty much did what most Republican governors did in 2020. He basically followed the Trump White House's guidance on when to shut down and when to reopen. What's happened since then, though, is he's kind of successfully created a memory of Florida being the place that was free when everyone else was still closed and marketed himself and Florida as the state that never shut down, even though they did do what most other states did.

He was there to unpack the first box of vaccine shipments to Florida and to be there for the first injection of a vaccine in Florida. And now he's really turned against the COVID vaccine and has asked for a special investigation and has been promoting, frankly, conspiracy theories about the vaccine. And I actually talked to a lot of DeSantis supporters, and it's one of the first things that they mentioned, whether you give Trump credit for it or not, the development of the vaccine in such record time, you know, was a scientific and medical miracle. But there is a significant constituency of Republicans who believe that it didn't work or believe that it was harmful, and that that was a mistake on Trump's part for rushing that out. And DeSantis is trying

to appeal to that. Interesting. And then the other thing I wanted to highlight really quickly was his Stop Woke Act, which prohibits educational institutions and businesses from teaching students and employees anything that would cause anyone to, quote, feel guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress due to their race or color, sex, or national origin. Can you kind of unpack that? What was that all about? sex or national origin. Can you kind of unpack that? What was that all about? So this became a kind of Republican focus in 2021, a series of laws in different states around the country trying to regulate how American history is taught as it applies to race. It's caused all sorts of issues in terms of courses getting shut down, teachers or principals getting fired, not just in Florida, but in other states also. And DeSantis continues to actually court controversy around this and wanting to have a fight about this in terms of defending the state's recommended curriculum that used the word benefit to describe how some enslaved people

developed skills that they later used after winning their freedom. But I think what they're doing is I think that they're probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed being you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life. But the reality is all of that is rooted in whatever is factual. And DeSantis has picked fights with black Republican members of Congress and refused any acknowledgement that there are no silver linings to slavery. I actually asked him last week directly, in his opinion, were there any positive aspects to slavery?

And he wouldn't take that question. So he's been campaigning on this track record of his accomplishments in Florida, hoping that these very conservative policies that he was able to push through in Florida will resonate with Republicans across the country, right? And you kind of touched on some of these things, but how closely has his campaign mirrored what he's done in Florida? So initially, very closely. And actually, even before it was officially a campaign, it was a book tour. And but, you know, everyone kind of knew he was running. And he was going around talking about the Florida blueprint. And, you know, that kind of knew he was running and he was going around talking about the Florida blueprint. And, you know, that ended up kind of being a little bit awkward, you know, going to Iowa and New Hampshire and these other states and talking about how wonderful Florida was all the time. And it became kind of a kind of a parody about how his speech was Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida. And the campaign is sort of trying to recalibrate that now

and talk more about a national vision. So if we go back to the beginning, his campaign launch, it was a bit of a disaster. He did it on Twitter spaces, and there were a bunch of tech issues, audio glitches, servers crashing, and you had Elon Musk and David Sachs trying to do damage control on the fly. All right. Sorry about that. We've got so many people here that I think we are kind of melting the servers. I think we're back online here.

Are you there? Can you hear us? I think you broke the internet. I'm here. I know. I think you broke the internet there. Now we're about two months into the campaign and his numbers have plummeted. He's trailing behind Trump by a landslide, 37 points. So where do you think things went wrong for him? So there are a few things that happened. One is that Trump started getting indicted, not just once, but twice and soon to be maybe a third and even fourth time. And those indictments actually, weirdly, within the Republican Party had the

effect of rallying Republicans around him, putting pressure on the other candidates, including DeSantis, to actually defend Trump rather than fault him for criminal charges. And that combined with, you know, there was a little bit of just kind of a weather shifting of voters kind of forgot why they were mad at Trump over the midterms. And as Trump got back out there campaigning, remembered what they liked about Trump. And then, you know, the indictments sort of blotted out the sun and made it all about Trump all the time and made Trump look like the victim. And that's a very comfortable place for Trump to be. And the campaign was very aggressive about exploiting that.

So that was some of what was going on in the polls. And you could fault DeSantis for missing his moment, for waiting too long, for not actually getting into the race until only a couple months ago, that by keeping his head down in Florida, he allowed Trump to just kind of dominate and retake that position. And then the last piece of it probably would be how DeSantis has campaigned. People say he's trying to run to the right of Trump, which is sort of right on a few issues, on abortion, on LGBT rights. He is staking out positions that are further to the right on Trump. But what he's really doing is trying to run directly through Trump. He's trying to win Trump's base away from Trump. Part of how he's trying to run like directly through Trump. He's trying to, to win Trump's base away from Trump.

Part of how he's trying to do that. It's like convince them that he's actually more conservative than Trump. But, you know, the problem is, and this is why you're not seeing him attack Trump very much. It's like, well, it's kind of hard to, to tell people who love Trump, that Trump is bad. So he's at the same time that he's, you know, having this challenge running to the right of Trump or showing Trump supporters that he's more conservative than Trump. That's also antagonized some more moderate Republicans who don't love Trump and are very eager in actually moving on from Trump. But then they don't like it when DeSantis does things like the six-week abortion ban or has made some comments about Ukraine, suggesting that it was just a territorial

dispute and he wouldn't fully support Ukraine against the Russian invasion. So it's kind of difficult to hold that together, trying to get both constituencies of the party from either side of Trump. A simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household

income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I know you've been on the campaign trail with both of them, and I'm curious, what do you think appeals to people about Trump that DeSantis doesn't have? Yeah, this is the other factor is, you know, to actually see them as campaigners. You know, there's a lot of things about Trump that people really, really love that people find really inspiring and and really joyful, actually. You know, a Trump rally is an electrifying

experience. And when I was in Iowa the other night, you know, Trump, after the speeches, shook hands for hours of people lining up who wanted a photo and a handshake. And, you know, he would backslap and he would look them in the eye. And he has a magnetic personality that that voters would tell me, you know, they're not they're not really getting that from DeSantis, which is not to say necessarily that they thought that the president needed to be an entertainer, but that he was leaving them cold and he wasn't making connections with them. He wasn't bringing out that same energy. And even though they would say that they really liked his message and they like him personally, he wasn't locking them down. He wasn't winning them over.

The other thing that seems to be working against him, and correct me if you think I'm wrong, but he doesn't seem to be that great with people, which you kind of have to be as a presidential candidate, right? There have been some clips of him recently interacting with people and he just comes across as a bit robotic, not very charming. Like he shamed a kid for eating an Icy. Oh, what is that? An Icy? Yeah, that's probably a lot of sugar, huh? He has this weird laugh and I'm remembering this clip of him scolding university students for wearing masks, for example. You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take it. Honestly, it's not doing anything and we got to stop with this COVID theater.

So you want to wear it. All right. But this is this is ridiculous. And you've been with him on the campaign trail. And I'm just curious, is he like this generally or are those select moments that we're seeing? Like, what's his vibe? No, he's clearly not enjoying it. And, you know, he's not used to it. To become governor of Florida was a very broadcast television, big media kind of a campaign. And he hasn't had to do the retail politics that it takes to win traditionally to win Iowa and New Hampshire, the first nominating contests. And so you can just see he's not super well practiced at it. And he's also, he was used to as governor of Florida, he could dominate the

news cycle in Florida anytime he spoke. And he got really positive coverage from Fox News. And there's a learning curve now and he's like trying to having to scrap with Trump to just get noticed in the news cycle. Yeah. Like I saw today that he unveiled his economic plan and someone tweeted, he just doesn't have the juice. And I guess in comparison to Trump, it's kind of hard to be that guy, right? Well, not only that, I mean, but the title of the proposal that he was rolling out is almost identical to a speech that Trump made in 2016. He's trying to offer people a new Trump, but a lot of people like the old Trump. Yeah. It seems like logistically there have been some things that are going wrong too. They just laid off a bunch of staff and they're saying they're

doing a bit of a reset. DeSantis's campaign, I mean, can you tell me a bit about their financial situation? Have they been overspending? Yeah, the campaign acknowledges that they have a problem, that what they've been doing is not working, and that they are trying to fix it. So one part of it was downsizing. They laid off about a third of the staff, and it was a very big staff. And this, by the way, is something that we've seen before with candidates, particularly governors who come out of the blocks with a huge operation and a lot of buzz and then don't catch fire and have gotten over their skis. They've also been spending a lot of money. DeSantis really doesn't like flying commercial like some of the other candidates. And so they've been spending a lot

of money on flying them around on private planes. And they have been, and they're going to be increasingly because of the financial situation on the campaign, outsourcing more campaign functions to the Super PAC, which is an allied group that can raise unlimited money and technically isn't allowed to coordinate directly with the campaign. But they're having the Super PAC do like door knocking and mailers and ads and actually even events. So the Super PAC puts on the event and then DeSantis shows up as the quote unquote guest. So it kind of looks like a campaign stop, but it's not actually the campaign itself paying for it. So that's all on the kind of

operational side. And then message wise, they are choosing their shots carefully about when they want to take on Trump directly and when they don't. And again, that's that challenge that they have of trying to peel off Trump supporters. I guess it rubs them the wrong way when you attack Trump, right? Meanwhile, Trump has been relentlessly making fun of Ron DeSantis at every opportunity. The problem with Ron DeSantis is that he needs a personality transplant and those are not yet available. I got him the nomination, by the way, couldn't have never gotten the nomination. He would be working in either a pizza parlor place or a law office right now. When a man comes to me, tears in his eyes, he said almost nothing in the polls.

I said, you can't win, can you? How do you win? Sir, if you endorse me, I'll win, please, please sir, endorse me. So what happened is, I said, let's give it a shot, absolutely. Trump never misses a chance to take a swing. And it is awkward for DeSantis to attack Trump, given the fact that not too long ago they had really close ties. And even during his 2018 campaign, there was an ad where he's saying Trump slogans to his kids. He's teaching Madison to talk. Make America great again. Well, they were never really personally close. They had a marriage of convenience where Trump was advised that DeSantis winning Florida in 2018 would help Trump win it in 2020.

DeSantis winning Florida in 2018 would help Trump win it in 2020. And so he endorsed him and he campaigned for him. What happened was that alliance frayed just as soon as either or both of them decided it wasn't in their interest anymore. And it became actually very personal that, you know, Trump resents that DeSantis dares to take him on and, you know, not really just wants to beat him, but wants to destroy him, wants to crush him, wants to end him and run him into the ground. So the good news for DeSantis is that it is still early days and the Iowa primary isn't till January and there have been candidates in the past who've made comebacks, people like Bill Clinton, John McCain. And we talked a bit about what this campaign reset looks like. So what do you think it's going to take for DeSantis to recover? So the campaign is hoping that they can tweak the message, they can bring down the spending,

and then they want to make it to the first debate, which is toward the end of August, and hope they have a breakout moment. You know, those are some of the opportunities to really change the momentum of a campaign. The wild card is that Trump has been saying he's not going to go to the debate. And, you know, he might even undermine it by doing something else at the same time. And so on the one hand, it's it's easier to attack Trump when Trump's not there to defend himself. But on the other hand, it's kind of hard to show that you can beat Trump if Trump's not even there. And that's basically Trump's attitude. It's like, there is no debate without me. They can squabble among themselves for the

privilege of taking me on. So it feels like the obvious question to end on, and I know it's early, but what's your sense of how this might go? Because Trump's lead is so staggering. And yes, DeSantis has time to turn things around and there are other candidates in the running. But if you're one of his rivals right now, is there a point or do you think a Trump versus Biden rematch for 2024 is a foregone conclusion? Well, I'm not going to make predictions like that, and there is a lot of time left. But you can definitely see the parallels to 2015 and 16 when Trump ran and he had a plurality, not a majority, and everyone else was splitting the field, trying to fight among themselves to

be the last man standing against Trump. And what they ended up doing was just letting Trump and his plurality carry him all the way. Isaac, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. All right, that's all for today. I'm Tamara Kandaker. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.