The Irish Times view on Ron DeSantis: failure to launch

One feature of the exhaustingly long US presidential primaries is that contenders can fall even before the first hurdle is reached. While it is too early to say that this will be the case for Republican candidate Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor’s slide in polls since the start of this year does not bode well for a man who many thought had the best chance of preventing a third tilt at the White House by Donald Trump. A New York Times poll this week shows the former president in a dominant position on 54 per cent support, with DeSantis trailing on 17 per cent and everyone else in the low single digits.

Six months ago, DeSantis looked a real contender. He was credited with Republican gains in Florida in last November’s midterm elections, while Trump was blamed for the party’s anaemic showing elsewhere. However, some observers were sceptical about whether he had the charisma or retail political skills to prevail in the gruelling campaign. Their reservations have been borne out by a series of maladroit performances and missteps. DeSantis’s claim to be a flagbearer for insurgent populism rings hollow given his dependence on a handful of billionaire donors, several of whom now appear to be reconsidering their support, as does Rupert Murdoch’s influential Fox News.

Apart from his obvious discomfort on the campaign trail, the governor’s strategy of outflanking Trump on the right with his “war on woke” is also misfiring. The fight he picked with Disney, one of Florida’s biggest employers, has not gone well. His restrictions on access to abortion are unpopular. And his focus on issues such as transgender rights, while outraging Democrats, have failed to shake Republicans loose from their loyalty to Trump. Nor does that loyalty appear to have been affected by the central pitch of the DeSantis campaign – that he can beat Joe Biden in the general election while Trump will inevitably lose. With five months to go to the start of primary voting, and despite the prospect of facing multiple court cases during election year, Trump’s hold on his party remains as strong as ever.