DeSantis’s Problem: Alienating the Voters He Needs

The Ron DeSantis campaign’s theory of its case has not been hard to intuit. The Florida governor has devoted most of his energies to peeling away Donald Trump’s core supporters by taking ownership of the former president’s issue set and presenting himself as a more competent and capable steward of those priorities. On paper, the strategy makes sense. But in focusing to a prohibitive degree on the GOP’s least persuadable voters, he has sacrificed his appeal to its most persuadable voters. Even if that is a smaller pool of Republicans, it is one that any anti-Trump candidate must corner if their presidential enterprise is going to be successful.

We know Ron DeSantis’s campaign understands that its theory of the case is wrong. That is the unacknowledged subtext of the campaign’s “reboot” phase, which has stretched on now for the better part of a week. To follow the reboot granularly is to get lost in the nuts and bolts of the campaign’s staffing decisions. But the best film crew in America can’t make a bad script into a good feature. For DeSantis, it’s the script that needs retooling as much as its executors.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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The Ron DeSantis campaign’s theory of its case has not been hard to intuit. The Florida governor has devoted most of his energies to peeling away Donald Trump’s core supporters by taking ownership of the former president’s issue set and presenting himself as a more competent and capable steward of those priorities. On paper, the strategy makes sense. But in focusing to a prohibitive degree on the GOP’s least persuadable voters, he has sacrificed his appeal to its most persuadable voters. Even if that is a smaller pool of Republicans, it is one that any anti-Trump candidate must corner if their presidential enterprise is going to be successful.

We know Ron DeSantis’s campaign understands that its theory of the case is wrong. That is the unacknowledged subtext of the campaign’s “reboot” phase, which has stretched on now for the better part of a week. To follow the reboot granularly is to get lost in the nuts and bolts of the campaign’s staffing decisions. But the best film crew in America can’t make a bad script into a good feature. For DeSantis, it’s the script that needs retooling as much as its executors.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.