The Trump-DeSantis Primary Fight Begins

While New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg considers indicting Donald Trump on an apparently fragile felony charge over a seven-year-old hush money payment to former adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, Trump focuses his attention on the person he regards as the most significant threat to his political command: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump’s followers insisted on DeSantis’ opinions on the impending indictment. After a few days, DeSantis spoke, but his comments did not please Trump’s base: “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. But what I can speak to is if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda.”

Trump deemed DeSantis’ sharp statements against Bragg insufficient because he mentioned the rationale for Trump’s legal issues: his unfortunate affinity for sexual adventures. This prompted Trump to accuse DeSantis of grooming underage girls and/or boys on Truth Social: “Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!).”

However, this was only the beginning. Later on, excerpts were released from a DeSantis interview with Piers Morgan in which DeSantis criticized Trump’s decisions as president. DeSantis said, “the way we run the government I think is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board and I think that’s something that’s very important.” He added that he “would have fired” Anthony Fauci, which contradicts Trump, who made Fauci the face of the federal government’s response to the pandemic.

The fight has now begun in earnest.

At the moment, Trump seems to have the upper hand. He is the focal point of all politics. In the Monmouth poll in December 2022, DeSantis surpassed Trump, leading him 39% to 26% – shortly after Trump’s candidates in Senate races lost everywhere, while DeSantis had a clean sweep in Florida. Nonetheless, DeSantis currently trails Trump by a margin of 27% to 41% in the same poll.

Dealing with Trump will be challenging for any Republican candidate, for two particular reasons. Firstly, many Republican voters believe that Trump is not subject to political gravity: after Obama’s re-election in 2012, there was a widespread political sentiment that Democrats would never lose another presidential election. Nevertheless, Trump miraculously defeated Hillary Clinton while speaking his mind. Despite the losses Trump has faced in the 2018 midterm elections, 2020 presidential election, 2021 Georgia Senate races, and 2022 midterms, many Republicans still regard him as a winner. When they don’t, he drops in the polls, as he did in December 2022.

Secondly, Republicans unite around Trump whenever he is attacked by the Left. Such support is appropriate when it comes to unjust prosecutions by rogue DAs. Still, many Republican voters have extended this to the point that they now consider Trump off-limits to criticism even by other Republicans since the Left might use such attacks as a rationale to attack Trump. This is an almost impossible needle to thread. How do you criticize Trump without the base perceiving that your attacks are aiding the Left? Meanwhile, Trump has been granted the soft bigotry of low expectations: he can say whatever he likes about other candidates, and nobody bats an eye. It’s Marquess of Queensberry rules for Trump’s opponents and WWE folding-chair-to-the-back-of-the-head smackdowns for Trump himself.

So, what can DeSantis do? The answer: it’s not entirely up to DeSantis. It’s up to Republican voters. DeSantis’ job is to remind them that Trump has only won one election in the last seven years; it’s the job of Republican voters to recognize that reality. DeSantis must point out that Trump failed to clean out the executive branch and gave Anthony Fauci power; it’s up to Republicans to acknowledge that such criticisms are not “unfair attacks.” DeSantis must remind voters of his track record; it’s the responsibility of Republicans to look to his record rather than Trump’s tweets for policy victories.

Will Republican voters use their heads rather than their hearts? Only time will tell.

From “The Trump-DeSantis Primary Fight Begins”

“The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author of the article and not necessarily shared or endorsed by Conservative News Daily.”

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases