DeSantis and Trump are taking their campaign fight to Florida

For months, former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s most prominent politicians, circled each other on the campaign trail, with Mr. Trump consistently mocking Mr. DeSantis and the governor only recently beginning to fire back.

On Saturday, their political battle came home to Florida, where both candidates were scheduled to speak at the Florida Freedom Summit, a state party event in Kissimmee. It was the rare occasion when Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis would share the same stage, albeit hours apart.

Yet Mr. DeSantis, who faces a large vote gap behind Mr. Trump, did not directly attack the former president, whose he doubted manhood this week. Instead, he eschewed his more recent outspokenness with his rival and returned to the veiled jabs that characterized the early stages of the race.

His hesitation to do so in front of the Republican base seemed to reflect his campaign’s biggest obstacle. Even as the rivalry between Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis has defined the presidential primaries for months, the former president’s grip on the party has not loosened. Mr. DeSantis, long considered his main challenger, has lost ground.

In his speech on Saturday, Mr. DeSantis seemed at times to be operating in an alternate reality. During his remarks, he stood in front of an image that read “Florida is DeSantis Country.” Although the governor won the state last year by nearly 20 percentage points and received strong support from the crowd in attendance, poll averages shows Mr. Trump 35 points ahead of him in Florida.

And while Mr. DeSantis opened his speech by joking that he didn’t need a teleprompter — a jab at President Biden — he often looked down at his notes during his speech.

Even before either candidate appeared at the Florida Freedom Summit, the stage was set for the final chapter of their bitter political duel. On Saturday morning, five Republican state lawmakers said they were shifting their endorsements from the governor to the former president, a move first reported by The messenger.

Their defection came days after Senator Rick Scott of Florida, Mr DeSantis’ predecessor in the governor’s mansion with whom he has had a frosty relationship, said he supported Mr. Trump.

Mr. DeSantis dismissed the significance of the lawmakers’ reversal.

“Look, this happens in these things,” he said after signing papers for the Florida primary. “We have seen the opposite trend in other states. It’s a dynamic thing. I mean, politicians do what they’re going to do.”

Still, many Republicans in the state have privately whispered that Mr. DeSantis appears weaker at home than ever before, and Mr. Trump’s allies have said they are recruiting more defectors.

“It is time to unite our party behind Donald Trump,” Senator Debbie Mayfield, one of the lawmakers who switched their support to Trump, said in a statement.

Mr. DeSantis has had a tight grip on Florida since his election in 2018, systematically expanding the powers of his office and using the weight of his support to fill the Legislature with allies.

Even before Mr. DeSantis announced he would run for office in 2024, nearly a hundred state lawmakers endorsed him for president.

But the playing field has changed since Mr. DeSantis’ campaign ran into trouble this summer. He is now regularly ridiculed by his former ally, Mr Trump. Memes poke fun at his unhappy moments on the campaign trail, including awkward facial expressions, forced laughs and a controversy over whether or not Mr. DeSantis is a pulls in his boots. (He says no.)

A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis’ campaign pointed out that he continues to receive strong support from state lawmakers in Florida, as well as in New Hampshire and Iowa, the first states nominated.

However, Trump remains very popular with voters in those states, with double digits in the polls. Although Mr. DeSantis has staked his campaign on a strong performance in Iowa, a recent poll showed him tied there with Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. She has left him behind in the polls New Hampshire also.

Ms Haley was originally scheduled to speak at the summit but was not present on Saturday. Her campaign did not respond to a question about her absence.

Mr. Trump is happy with Mr. DeSantis’ briefs. “We just beat him up,” he said at a rally in Houston on Thursday. “And now I think we should go hit someone else, because I think Ron looks like he’s done.”

Mr Trump will again try to overshadow Mr DeSantis on Wednesday when the governor and other Republican rivals take part in the third Republican debate in Miami. The former president, who has announced he will instead hold a rally in Hialeah, Florida, is again skipping the debate, a decision that Mr. DeSantis sharply criticized earlier this week but did not mention on Saturday.

“If Donald Trump can muster the balls to come to the debate, I will wear a boot on my head,” DeSantis said in a television interview Thursday.

Trump’s hold on Republicans in Florida was clearly visible during the summit.

Mark Spowage, 73, said he had considered Mr. DeSantis a Republican “golden boy” after winning Mr. Trump’s endorsement in 2018. But his opinion of the governor plummeted when he announced he was challenging Mr. Trump for the nomination — a shift shared by many of Trump’s most loyal followers.

“How does he think he has the right to do that?” Mr. Spowage, a software engineer, asked Mr. DeSantis. “Because Trump was ordained from my position, as someone anointed by God to take responsibility in some way. For him to take on Trump, wow.”

Other candidates who criticized Mr. Trump were heckled. When former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he believed Trump would most likely be found guilty in one of the criminal cases he faces, the boos were heavy.

And Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who has become an outspoken Trump critic, was immediately jeered after taking the stage.

Undeterred, Mr Christie fired back at the crowd: “Your anger against the truth is reprehensible.”

Jasmine Ulloa reporting contributed.