If they can’t outpace Trump, they’ll lie in wait to catch him limping.
the charmless and awkward Ron DeSantis entered the presidential race. In 2024 Republican primary polling, he consistently comes in second to Donald Trump. He has built his legend on an easy re-election as Florida’s governor and an easy route by which he enacted a slate of bullying and regressive “anti-woke” legislation, thanks to Republicans’ supermajorities in Florida’s Legislature.
He brandishes his record as evidence of his effectiveness, but all he’s done is win a series of fights in which his opponents had their hands tied by being in the minority.
Yet many Republican commentators and donors, who’ve been desperate to move on from the toxicity of Trump, landed on DeSantis when casting about for alternatives. They inflated his ego, convincing him his big-footing in Florida made him formidable.
He appears to be banking on Trump fatigue, or maybe Trump’s legal problems piling so high that even the former president’s most ardent supporters come to the conclusion that he is too encumbered to prevail. If he can’t outpace Trump, he’ll lie in wait to catch him limping.
He’s not alone in that lane. The candidates (or potential candidates) Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson and Chris Sununu — all current or former governors — occupy the same lane. They are the in-case-of-emergency-break-glass cohort: If Trump winds up on the path to prison and Republicans must scrounge for a last-minute replacement, they’re hoping that voters see them as solid substitutes.
They’re positioned as candidates who can deliver on Republican policy priorities without Trump’s baggage and Trump’s drama — but Trump’s drama is the thing that many of his supporters are addicted to. The policies are welded to the persona.
Trump allows his supporters to feel and express their full range of emotion: He entertains them; he channels their rage; he reflects their oppressive urges; he’s an oracle of their self-perceived victimhood and their model of a warrior against a government and culture that they feel are turning on them.
