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“The Florida governor is the political equivalent of a baseball player who cannot throw, catch, or bat. In other words, what does Ron DeSantis bring to the table? Sometimes, good candidates run bad campaigns. Other times, candidates are so lacking in talent that even an incredible strategy executed perfectly is insufficient. Ron DeSantis is a bad candidate running a very bad campaign. In fact, his campaign seems designed in a lab to make Donald Trump more electable.”
“I don’t really buy into the rich need to pay their fair share.”
— Mike Pence, campaigning in Iowa.
“By almost every measure, the rightwinger has had another lackluster week on the campaign trail, with “clumsy” missteps in New Hampshire, Texas, California and New York. Now, barely one month after his glitch-ridden launch on Twitter, DeSantis finds himself sinking in the polls, closer to the large field of optimists below him than the twice-indicted, twice-impeached former president who retains a stranglehold over the Republican party.”
“It’s like he’s been assembled from the discarded spare parts of Bobby Jindal, Bill deBlasio, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker.”
— Veteran GOP political strategist Jeff Timmer described Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the “worst” presidential candidate he has ever seen.
$70 million
“The political network established by the conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch has raised more than $70 million for political races as it looks to help Republicans move past Donald Trump, a Federal Election Commission filing will show,” the New York Times reports.
“This year is starting to feel a lot like 2016, a primary field that contains Trump and all the other not-Trump candidates. The only difference between this contest and 2016 is that other candidates then ran (ostensibly, at least) as their own selves and not just lesser versions of the OG.”
“His whole act can feel like a clunky contrivance—a forced persona railing against phony or hyped-up outrages.”
26%
Los Angeles Times poll: “Trump has the support of 44% of California’s likely Republican primary voters, while DeSantis was backed by 26%… That’s a notable reversal of their standings three months ago, when DeSantis led Trump by 8 percentage points among the state’s GOP voters.”
“Ron DeSantis says that Donald Trump is a loser and that the time has come for Republican primary voters and caucus attenders to leave him behind and get on with the task of winning elections. This is an odd way to address Trump voters, to put it mildly. You’re-a-loser-if-you-keep-voting-for-that-loser is not a winning message.”
“On television, DeSantis can come across as savvy, reasonably well media-trained, and sometimes aggressive. (His wife, Casey, is a former local news anchor.) But in person, I immediately sensed a very different potential candidate: a guarded politician who had no interest in actually engaging with other humans, and was perhaps even a little scared of the spotlight. He had trouble making eye contact with people in the crowd. After five minutes of unmemorable remarks, we were quickly ushered out of the room ….”
