DeSantis & Wishing Away Trump

Rich asks what Ron DeSantis’s plan is to actually start winning primaries, if he’s just waiting for Donald Trump to run Nikki Haley off the road so he can finally stage a two-man race. As I noted in yesterday’s deep dive into where things went wrong for DeSantis, I am at a loss for the plan. Iowa was pretty much the perfect storm for DeSantis: a state Trump lost last time, an Upper Midwest holdout of decency for which Trump is a poor fit, a state where Republicans have recently built a dominant position and thus know what a winning GOP looks like (i.e., more like DeSantis in Florida than like Trump), a socially conservative electorate, a caucus that rewards organization, and the endorsement of the governor, legislative leaders, and key social-conservative leaders. And DeSantis not only lost to Trump by 30 points, he couldn’t stave off the collapse of turnout compared with 2016. Much as I still prefer DeSantis and would love to be proven wrong on this, I have a hard time seeing where things work better for him.

There’s a second flaw in that plan: Haley is likely to have money enough to linger in the race as long as she wants, if she’s inclined to do so, and if anything, she has stronger incentives to stay in the race long after it’s effectively over than DeSantis does. John Kasich, recall, did not run out of money or quit the race until minutes after Ted Cruz did. Haley, unlike DeSantis, doesn’t have a day job. She hasn’t been trying to build bridges with the MAGA electorate, so she is less likely to worry about making enemies by hanging around too long. She might, however, still see an opening to get Trump to offer her a position on the ticket to make her go away. DeSantis doesn’t want that, and couldn’t have it anyway, because of the constitutional rule that Florida’s electoral votes couldn’t go to a ticket of two Florida residents. On the whole, I think it may make more sense for Haley than for DeSantis to remain in the race all the way through the primaries, in order to claim the title of runner-up and next in line.

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Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Rich asks what Ron DeSantis’s plan is to actually start winning primaries, if he’s just waiting for Donald Trump to run Nikki Haley off the road so he can finally stage a two-man race. As I noted in yesterday’s deep dive into where things went wrong for DeSantis, I am at a loss for the plan. Iowa was pretty much the perfect storm for DeSantis: a state Trump lost last time, an Upper Midwest holdout of decency for which Trump is a poor fit, a state where Republicans have recently built a dominant position and thus know what a winning GOP looks like (i.e., more like DeSantis in Florida than like Trump), a socially conservative electorate, a caucus that rewards organization, and the endorsement of the governor, legislative leaders, and key social-conservative leaders. And DeSantis not only lost to Trump by 30 points, he couldn’t stave off the collapse of turnout compared with 2016. Much as I still prefer DeSantis and would love to be proven wrong on this, I have a hard time seeing where things work better for him.

There’s a second flaw in that plan: Haley is likely to have money enough to linger in the race as long as she wants, if she’s inclined to do so, and if anything, she has stronger incentives to stay in the race long after it’s effectively over than DeSantis does. John Kasich, recall, did not run out of money or quit the race until minutes after Ted Cruz did. Haley, unlike DeSantis, doesn’t have a day job. She hasn’t been trying to build bridges with the MAGA electorate, so she is less likely to worry about making enemies by hanging around too long. She might, however, still see an opening to get Trump to offer her a position on the ticket to make her go away. DeSantis doesn’t want that, and couldn’t have it anyway, because of the constitutional rule that Florida’s electoral votes couldn’t go to a ticket of two Florida residents. On the whole, I think it may make more sense for Haley than for DeSantis to remain in the race all the way through the primaries, in order to claim the title of runner-up and next in line.