Ron DeSantis is reducing his staff for his campaign. The Florida governor’s campaign for president has ended, right?
That’s the conclusion that one might draw from the leftist echo chamber of ABC, Associated Press, The Guardian, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NBC, Yahoo, Politico, HuffPost, and Rolling Stone as they keep one eye on the DeSantis campaign and the other on the skies for any potential vultures.
Ronnie, farewell; we hardly knew you.
Okay, forget that.
Even Fox News has joined in.
Who has any idea what they stand for anymore?
Undoubtedly, reducing the workforce of a campaign by 10 just 16 months before a general election is a matter of finances rather than strategy.
What is happening to the DeSantis campaign, then? Is it slowing down?
In a one-on-one conversation with DeSantis, CNN’s Jake Tapper delved into these topics. Some of your fans are upset that your campaign hasn’t gained traction in the polls the way they’d hoped, Tapper said.
“One Republican pollster — one who is sympathetic to you — I was asking her about your campaign and she said that she thought the issue was: you bumped up [in polls] at the beginning because voters, Republican voters, saw you as a more electable conservative like Trump,” according to Tapper.
“Trump without the baggage,” he continued. “But then they say as you go further and further to the right on these divisive social issues that could alienate moderate suburban moms, et cetera, Republican voters see you as less and less electable.”
DeSantis quickly blew off the whole idea. “I don’t think it’s true,” he responded. “The proof is in the pudding.
“I mean, I took a state that had been a 1-point state and we won it by 20 percentage points — 1.5 million votes — our bread and butter were people like suburban moms.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in an exclusive interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, remained upbeat about his chance of defeating former President Donald Trump even as his campaign cuts staff and attempts a restart amid stalled polling and mounting expenses. https://t.co/elbmsaxN2y pic.twitter.com/DBOZ2O1Lhq
— CNN (@CNN) July 18, 2023
DeSantis described how he spearheaded the fight for parental rights, educational choice, and the end of brainwashing in the classroom in Florida.
Additionally, he mentioned “bread and butter issues” like crime, inflation, and the economy, saying that Florida’s economy was the best among the 50 states.
DeSantis attributed his decline in the polls to the [iii]initial significant media coverage he received following his convincing re-election victory while also having to carry out his duties as governor, particularly when dealing with the legislature.
DeSantis praised “a great legislative session” in which socially conservative measures that were popular with many people were passed and asserted that Tapper’s judgment was flawed.
“So I was basically taking fire, really nonstop, since then because a lot of people view me as a threat. I think the left views me as a threat because I’ll beat Biden and actually deliver on all this stuff.
“And then, of course, people who have their allegiances on the Republican side have gone after me.
“But the reality is,” DeSantis continued, “This is a state-by-state process. I’m not running a campaign to try to juice, you know, whatever we are in the national polls.”
According to DeSantis, campaigning today entails creating a group that conducts the unsexy labor of directing voters to Iowa caucus locations in the dead of winter rather than creating eye-catching national advertising campaigns.
He discussed the organizational initiatives that are being made now in South Carolina and eventually in New Hampshire.
DeSantis, though, outlined a scenario in which his opponents were “almost trying too hard” to refute his campaign.
“They’ve been saying that I’m doing poorly for my whole time as governor, basically, this is always the case,” noting critics saying his refusal to shut down Florida during COVID would cost him re-election or there would be a similar penalty for fighting Disney.
“I kind of get a kick out when they say ‘He didn’t fund-raise well,’ when I did more than Biden and Trump in the second quarter, and I’m just a governor.”
Therefore, the DeSantis campaign is being targeted by the alphabet echo chamber, which includes the Times, AP, ABC, and NBC. If he thinks otherwise, he is delusional.
Alternatively, Ron DeSantis has traveled this path previously and, staff reductions or not, he is still positioning himself as a victor.
I guess we will see what happens, right?
Thomas Cooper