Unelectable Republicans
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, no doubt, hoped that a smooth start to his now officially announced candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination would put an end to nagging questions about his fitness as a candidate. Instead, the glitch-filled launch on “Twitter Spaces” Wednesday became a metaphor for all that has gone wrong for DeSantis in recent months and only dramatized his problems as a candidate.
Much has been written about DeSantis’s sagging poll numbers. He seemed a strong potential candidate only a few months ago. He had been reelected as governor of the nation’s third largest — and often closely contested — state by a nearly 20-point margin. He trailed frontrunner Donald Trump by only 13 points at the beginning of 2023 in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. But that was then. Now, DeSantis is 37 points back, with the gap continuing to widen. All the other potential or announced candidates are mired in single digits.
DeSantis’s plummeting numbers highlight his problems as a candidate. He has failed to attract deep-pocket Republican donors. Many had been poised to back DeSantis with major financial contributions, but now seem skeptical, thinking DeSantis waited too long to enter the race and doubting whether the Florida governor has the chops to take on Trump. The Florida governor has stumbled on the issues. He first called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute” then backtracked to concede that “Russia invaded — that was wrong.” He often appears awkward or arrogant on the campaign trail. His decision to announce his presidential run online fuels this narrative, suggesting a reluctance to appear before voters. On the stump, he can come across as more interested in talking policy than engaging voters in one-on-one retail campaigning, a critical skill in the small, early primary states. DeSantis lacks the easy familiarity as a campaigner of someone like Ronald Reagan. Nor is he a chap, like George W. Bush, with whom one might want to kick back and share a story or two. Neither will anyone confuse DeSantis with Bill Clinton, whose “I feel your pain” empathy resonated with voters.
Like the other candidates vying for the Republican nomination, DeSantis has pegged his appeal to voters on electability, specifically that the front-running Trump cannot win the general election. And, again, like the other candidates, DeSantis has refused — for the most part — to criticize Trump openly, fearing the repercussions of alienating Trump’s cult-like loyal base and earning Trump’s wrath at being challenged at all. The combination of arguing Trump is unelectable but refusing to criticize his actions or his policies is to admit, in effect, that Trump should be the candidate of the Republican Party. It is hard to run against Trump while tacitly admitting the former president should be the candidate except for one, small, niggling fact — he cannot win in the general election. Moreover, that argument might not be true. After all, many assumed Trump could not win in 2016.
There have been many primary battles in the past that have hinged on the contention that one or the other candidate is unelectable. But, those primaries have been dominated by normal candidates — that is, candidates who are not toxic like Trump and have not been twice impeached and criminally indicted. The problem this time around is that this is not a normal election. One of the candidates — the former president — was and is unfit to occupy the highest office in the land. The issue is not that Trump is unelectable; the issue is that Trump should not have been elected president and must not be returned to the White House. It is amoral to argue that Republicans should not nominate Trump for president only because he cannot win.
As for DeSantis, it is an open question whether he is electable. Is it smart politics for DeSantis to try to run to the right of Trump? Is a candidate who as governor signed a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy electable? Christian conservatives, who vote disproportionately in Republican primaries, love draconian strictures on abortion, but how will a near total ban play in the general election? DeSantis — who often makes bill signing a public ceremony — approved the abortion legislation quietly on a Thursday afternoon, then did not announce it publicly until late that evening. Evidently, DeSantis realized the Florida bill will not play well in the general election. He is, however, delusional if he thinks a private signing obscures the issue. Rest assured that the Biden campaign will take every opportunity to inform voters of where DeSantis stands on abortion.
One selling point DeSantis backers have made is that the Florida governor is Trump minus the drama. But is that even true? DeSantis has been surrounded by plenty of drama during his governorship, most notably in his decision to take on Disney. True, Disney annoyed DeSantis by criticizing his “Don’t Say Gay” bill. DeSantis retaliated by attempting to strip the corporation’s theme parks of their special tax status. Disney successfully fought back, proving that DeSantis may not be a particularly effective culture warrior. As the Disney dustup shows, the Florida governor has a very thin skin — a liability for a politician, especially one confronting a bully like Trump.
In his Wednesday launch, DeSantis promised to govern as president the way he has governed Florida — with a heavy hand. “We also understand governing is not entertainment,” DeSantis said. “It not about building a bond of virtue-signaling. It is about delivering results.” Yes, but many Americans concerned about the future of democracy — battered during the Trump presidency and the former president’s continuing assault on election integrity — may view DeSantis as just another Republican authoritarian, as they should.
Polls show that more than half of all Americans believe democracy is under threat. (That number rises to nearly two-thirds among 18- to 29-year-olds.) Those voters may rebel at electing as president a governor prone to suspend elected officials who displease him. DeSantis removed the elected Democratic sheriff of Broward County, four election supervisors in Palm Beach County, four members of the Broward County school board, and the Democratic prosecutor in Tampa. Overriding the will of the electorate by suspending duly-elected officials is a page in every authoritarian leader’s playbook.
DeSantis has consolidated power in the governor’s office. He took advantage of the pandemic to expand his authority by unilaterally spending $5 billion in federal aid without legislative approval. He orchestrated a takeover of New College, a liberal arts public institution, to remake it as a conservative bastion. He has reshaped public school curricula to reflect right-wing thinking. He has turned Florida into a state hostile to dissent and free thinking. The governor’s war on “woke” has resulted in attacks on transgender people and a removal of protections for diversity. Book banning is now common in Florida. The Republican-controlled state legislature passed laws restricting access to reading material, including Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Often the complaint of one parent — or a few — is sufficient to oust a book from a school library shelf. Recently, a school in Miami-Dade County placed Amanda Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb” — which she read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration — on a restricted list, available to middle school students but not those in elementary school, because one parent thought the poem featured “hate messages.”
Both leading Republican contenders look more and more unelectable. Trump because he is on a long losing streak, faces more and greater legal difficulties, and voters will tire of his lengthy litany of grievances, and DeSantis because he is governing a state which is beginning to look like Germany in the 1930s, except with theme parks and lots of sun and sand.
Posted May 26, 2023