The electoral campaign towards the White House in 2024 is reheated with a duel that promises to be fierce: the popular governor of Florida, the ultraconservative Ron DeSantis, will compete for the internal Republican party that today leads the controversial Donald Trump, as formalized on Wednesday.
The launch of DeSantis, 44, who many consider a "Trump with a brain," was widely expected, but was slow to materialize. He first formally submitted the papers to the election authority on Wednesday and then added a live audio conversation on Twitter with Elon Musk, the owner of the social network who has become a fervent Republican.
The strategy gave DeSantis the billionaire's 140 million audience platformnot only in the U.S. but around the world. Musk lifted the ban on Trump's account, but the former president has yet to return to the network he has fervently used during his triumphant 2016 campaign.
Trump comfortably leads the internal Republican Party today with 53% of the vote over DeSantis' 26% (the others are further away), according to a CNN poll published on Wednesday. But 2024 is still a long way off, and everything can change: According to the same poll, broad swaths of voters (80%) aligned with Republicans are willing to consider either, as well as several other candidates.
Protesters stand outside the Four Season Hotel in Miami, Florida, on May 24, 2023, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. AFP Photo
"Top Gun"
DeSantis is an ultraconservative who claims to "fight for freedom", to be "a warrior sent from God" and who fights hard against undocumented immigrants and any bias of "woke" or progressive culture.
A lawyer graduated from prestigious universities such as Yale and Harvard, DeSantis joined the army as a "Top Gun" and went on to fight in Iraq. Married to a TV presenter, with three children, he then dedicated himself to politics, first as a state congressman until reaching the governorship. He took flight when he faced the White House during the pandemic (especially in the Joe Biden era) and resisted closing businesses and the mandatory use of the mask.
It also lowered taxes and the sunshine and palm state became a magnet for many big-city Americans seeking a more relaxed climate and paying less.
When DeSantis swept his re-election to the governorship of Florida last year, the party establishment said enough to the maelstrom of scandals, trials and anti-democratic episodes such as the assault on Congress carried out by the former president.
And he began to turn his gaze southwards, to a candidate who was as conservative or more than the tycoon, but more inclined to management than to polemics and furious verbiage: DeSantis is "a neater Trump" or, as the Financial Times called him, "a Trump with brains and without drama."
In addition, DeSantis has a more solid political career and a traditional family and for now without scandals, in contrast to the profile that the former president has had with women, who are moving away from the Republican Party. Media like Fox and big donors began to support him. Many see him as a fresher candidate, with a baby son, and with a better chance of facing 80-year-old Joe Biden.
According to a Quinnipiac poll, Trump would get 46% of the vote against Biden's 48%, while DeSantis would have 47% against the Democrat's 46%. Practically the same, despite the fact that the governor of Florida has barely appeared on the national scene.
Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, in the White House in 2018. AP Photo
The same space
Trump is aware of his danger and has already dubbed him "DeSanctimonius," a play on his last name and "prude" in English. In addition, he has called him "ungrateful" because he considers that he helped him politically in his beginnings as governor. DeSantis generally doesn't answer him. The level of aggression is expected to increase over time, especially if DeSantis rises in the polls.
Without much charisma and sympathy, in this last year DeSantis dedicated himself to shore up his combative and ultraconservative aura to fight ground against Trump at the base: he fought mercilessly against undocumented immigrants, promoted in Congress the prohibition of abortion from six weeks of pregnancy, the elimination of racial diversity programs in public universities or the veto of sex education in schools, to name a few.
One of those laws, known as "Don't Say Gay," pitted him against entertainment giant Disney and stripped him of autonomy over his Orlando parks.
Sean Freeder, a political science professor at the University of North Florida, told Clarín that "De Santis occupies roughly the same political space as Trump, on the far right. The biggest distinction between the two is not their ideology, but their approach to politics in general: De Santis is more of a "programmatic" politician, focused on political action, while Trump focuses more on rhetoric and publicity. When the debates begin in a few months, I don't imagine you'll find many areas of policy disagreement, but rather differ on what you choose to emphasize."
"DeSantis can absolutely defeat Trump in the primaries, but it will be an uphill battle, given that Trump already enjoys very high status within the party," he said.
To win, De Santis will have to convince the party and his base that Trump is an erratic liability who will continue to damage the party's brand and will be less likely to win if he is the nominee in 2024. De Santis will have relatively little trouble convincing the party of this, as Republican elites have long been looking for a way to escape Trump's influence, but will find it much harder to convince the base."
He concludes: "As of this moment, Trump should probably be considered the presumptive favorite, but De Santis can win and his poll numbers will improve. The same probably can't be said for any other Republican entering the race."
PB
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