The anti-anti-Trumpers are heartsick. They thought they had the perfect candidate: an electorally and legislatively successful governor of a large state who could unite the Never Trumpers and the Maybe Trumpers and win a majority of the GOP voters, even without the base. Today, his campaign is in ruins. What could DeSantis have done differently?
Four things:
- It was probably necessary to fight at least some of the war on wokeness (the Disney part excepted) within Florida in order to protect his right flank, but after that, he should have pivoted immediately to the issues that really motivate the GOP electorate: inflation; China; and the border.
- He should have picked positions on abortion and Ukraine that were more acceptable to GOP mainstream voters. That’s what Haley did.
- He needed to define himself more sharply as an alternative to Trump, not a surrogate. That meant taking a clear position on January 6 and Trump’s criminal issues. Instead, he pandered to the base–a group he had no chance of winning–and alienated the donor class, which switched to Haley.
- He never provided any sort of positive vision for America. Haley did that, with her Reaganite ideas about small government; Trump does it, in a deranged way, with his plans to impose tariffs, withdraw from NATO, cut taxes on business, and deport millions of illegal immigrants; but DeSantis never did. Using the power of government to make trans people as miserable as possible does nothing to make the life of the average voter better. What did he offer, other than a grim reactionary ability to impose his will on the left through new statutes and regulations? Not a damn thing.