DeSantis campaign continues to struggle to gain a foothold

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, looking to shift his presidential candidate into high gear after an early string of missteps, spent the past two weeks rolling out an immigration policy and holding town halls with voters. But instead of correcting course, he stumbled again this week, raising questions about where his campaign is headed.

First, the team of Mr. DeSantis forced to challenge allegations, including from fellow Republicans, that it shared a “homophobic” video on social media. Subsequently, a top spokesman for the main super-PAC backing Mr. DeSantis acknowledged that former President Donald J. Trump was the “runaway front-runner” of the race, while Mr. DeSantis faced an “uphill battle.”

“Right now we’re way behind in national polls, I’ll be the first to admit that,” the adviser, Steve Cortes, said in a livestreamed Twitter event on Sunday. It was a confession particularly contrary to the confidence that the governor’s advisers usually display in public.

To top it off – in a visual representation of his recent troubles – Mr. DeSantis was drenched in a downpour as he marched alongside several dozen supporters in an Independence Day parade in New Hampshire — the pivotal early nomination state where his super PAC, Never Back Down, stopped showing television commercials in mid-May.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump hosted a rally in South Carolina that drew thousands over the holiday weekend, a reminder of his enduring popularity with Republicans despite losing in 2020 and now facing at least two criminal trials.

The race is still in its infancy, but Mr. DeSantis highlights the challenges facing his underdog campaign as it seeks a coherent strategy to break through against Mr. Trump.

So far, Mr. DeSantis has tried to undercut his main rival by subtly contrasting their ages, temperaments and data on things like the coronavirus pandemic without saying anything unkind about the former president, whom he hardly ever mentions by name. . He has also tried to get to Trump’s right on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights, while arguing that he is the Republican candidate best placed to attract swing voters and defeat President Biden.

But Mr. DeSantis, who has not shown himself to be a natural campaigner, has failed to take off in the polls, and his carefully choreographed public events have garnered few headlines as his campaign has until recently worked to shield him from potentially awkward, unscripted interactions with voters and the news media.

The shaky launch of his presidential campaign contrasts sharply with the self-assured way DeSantis has run Florida, silencing opposition within his own party and crushing Democrats in the midterm polls. It has also given hope to other primary candidates, several of whom have jumped into the race in recent weeks, that they can replace him as the party’s most plausible alternative to Trump.

“DeSantis’s argument is electability,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who regularly conducts focus groups with GOP voters. “But he undermines the electability argument by running to Trump’s right. He alienates college-educated suburban voters who want to get past Trump, “as well as the independents he would need to defeat Mr. Biden in a general election.”

Ms. Longwell said Mr. DeSantis’ efforts to differentiate himself from Mr. Trump without directly criticizing him risked leaving Florida’s governor without a natural constituency in the primary.

“You can’t get around Trump,” she said. “You have to go through him.”

National polls show Mr. DeSantis is about 30 points behind Mr. Trump — a gap that exists widened significantly since Mr. DeSantis began touring the country this spring introducing himself to voters.

Still, Mr. DeSantis remains the former president’s main challenger. He has shown his fundraising and Never Back Down is training an army of field organizers in states with early elections. And in the dog days of summer, before even a primary election debate scheduled for August, it’s far too early to predict how Iowans and New Hampshirites will vote next year.

Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for the DeSantis campaign, said in an email that Mr. DeSantis has been “underrated” in every race he has won.

“This campaign is a marathon, not a sprint; we shall prevail,” Mr. Griffin wrote.

DeSantis has rolled out his campaign in carefully considered phases, first with a series of speeches to introduce the nominee to the public in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, then a tour of town halls where Mr. DeSantis directly answered questions from voters, and now gradual announcements of deep policy proposals, starting with immigration.

His campaign says it has focused its spending on field operations rather than television advertising, a strategy that may not create immediate polling bumps but, his advisers argue, will pay off when it comes time to vote.

There are precedents for Mr. DeSantis’ slow strategy. At this point in the 2016 cycle was Texas Senator Ted Cruz poll at less than 10 percent in Iowa. But Mr. Cruz went on to win the state, thanks in part to a well-rehearsed run-out operation that Never Back Down tries to emulate. The campaign of Mr. DeSantis has so far been heavily focused on winning Iowa, where polls were last month showed he was about 20 points behind Mr. Trump.

Mr Cortes, the spokesman for Never Back Down, first said his comments about the difficulties of fighting Mr Trump. reported by Politico, were simply an admission of reality. But he added that he believed Mr. DeSantis could win.

“Hiring an incumbent or former president in the primary is always a big challenge,” Mr Cortes, who worked on Mr Trump’s campaigns in 2016 and 2020, said in an email. “I was happy to embrace that reality by joining the team. All of us at Team DeSantis remain convinced that the governor has a strong road to the nomination and a Republican’s best chance of defeating Biden in the general election.

A gifted showman, Mr. Trump is known for soaking up media attention and attention, draining his rivals’ oxygen and trying to smother their campaigns before they become bigger threats.

Mr. DeSantis has also become known as a provocateur, successfully drawing criticism from liberals and using it to gain support from his base. But a recent attempt that seemed contrived to attract so much attention – a video Trump for expressing support for LGBTQ people — seemed to backfire this weekend, sparking criticism not only from Democrats but other Republicans, including the largest group representing gay, lesbian, and transgender conservatives.

The video, taken by another Twitter user and reposted by Mr. DeSantis’ quick-response campaign account, relied heavily on obscure conservative memes.

Richard Barry, a former New Hampshire state legislator who attended a rainy July 4 breakfast attended by several presidential candidates, said he was eager to support someone other than Mr. Trump. But Mr. DeSantis has turned him down, he said, citing a criticism some voters have leveled against Trump — a sign that Mr. DeSantis is not yet distinguishing himself from the former president in any meaningful way.

“He has the attitude of a street kid who says, ‘It’s my way or the highway,'” said Mr. Barry about mr. DeSantis. “He doesn’t listen to people.”

Jazmine Ulloa contributed reporting from Merrimack, NH, Jonathan Swan contributed reporting from Washington, and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from New York.