Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s 2024 presidential campaign had been off to a rocky start even before launch day. DeSantis backers who hoped to see the embryonic campaign right itself were discouraged by its formal kickoff on Twitter, which struggled with technological hiccups and seemed designed to appeal to the narrow “very online” faction of the Right rather than average voters. We can safely assume that the DeSantis campaign recognized these early mistakes, because it has corrected for them.
In the days since, the candidate has dropped the emphasis on Bitcoin and the “woke mind virus.” He has replaced those messages with one that stresses something closer to DeSantis’s core strength: Not just his fealty to conservative ideological goals but his managerial acumen in their pursuit. It’s a pitch that has allowed him to take direct aim at Donald Trump.
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