Once considered an actual threat to the former president, Ron DeSantis continues to fall further and further behind Donald Trump. In fact, DeSantis is now so far in Trump’s rearview mirror he finally thinks he’s got nothing to lose by attacking the clear frontrunner directly.
The cheap shots taken at Trump by DeSantis started during the second GOP debate and have kept up since. After four months of a dismally disappointing campaign for DeSantis, the Florida governor is going on the attack against Trump on the campaign trail as the significant polling gap between the top two candidates widens. The decision to take on the favorite from the debate stage was the biggest forum yet for these attacks, but it was also just another milestone in an evolving war of words with Trump.
Coming off the debate stage in California, DeSantis has been more frequent and pointed in his criticisms of Trump than ever. Asked by a supporter in the audience during a campaign event in Tampa whether he could fill arenas like Trump, DeSantis said that Americans “were voting against Trump” in 2020 and that he continues to be a major motivating factor for Democratic voters.
“You could have John Kennedy walk through the door right now, and he wouldn’t energize Democrats as much as Donald Trump does,” DeSantis posited.
Only moments later, the governor shrugged off Trump’s fundraising numbers at a news conference, posing a rhetorical question: “Well, why is he raising that money, and where is that money going to? Isn’t it going to a lot of lawyers?”
This marks quite a difference from the early days of the DeSantis campaign, where he seemed quite unwilling to attack Trump directly, often deflecting any questions that would have put him at odds with Trump.
But now, DeSantis, who obviously has nothing left to lose, is more inclined to open warfare with the frontrunner.
For example, the week after DeSantis visited the Iowa State Fairgrounds outside Des Moines, the governor took aim at the former president’s decision to ditch the debate stage.
“You have to earn this nomination. Nobody’s entitled to it. You’ve got to get up there, and you’ve got to answer questions; you’ve got to be able to defend your record,” he told Fox News Radio.
The heat turned up again when a newly spreading coronavirus variant prompted re-litigation of Trump’s pandemic response. DeSantis told conservative commentator Dave Rubin on his streaming show that Trump “hurts himself” when he picks fights over their respective records on Covid response.
“He said I was one of the great governors in America,” DeSantis recalled, adding that during the midterm elections, Trump “saw that I was fixing to win a landslide, and he started attacking me, and then that’s basically it. Just because he believes that I’m a threat to his ambitions.” To what end a more aggressive stance by DeSantis will matter seems unclear. Trump holds a commanding polling lead in the Republican field. The most recent NBC News poll shows the former president with a 43-point lead over DeSantis, in line with the current national polling averages.