A lesson for DeSantis on the perils of peaking early

Let me describe a Republican presidential candidate for you. 

The governor of a swing state, this candidate has built a strong reputation as a firebrand conservative culture warrior. He has used his position to raise his national profile, campaigning for like-minded candidates in other states and speaking to conservative groups across the country. 

His comfortable reelection win has elevated him to frontrunner status in his party’s upcoming presidential primary contest at a time when the party itself is in need of a new direction and fresh leadership. The clear establishment favorite, this candidate leads in early polling and has become a top-tier fundraiser. 

Many reading this column may assume I’m talking, of course, about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), whose barnstorming of his state and the nation over the last four years have made him the darling of Republican activists and donors. 

While DeSantis certainly fits this description, it also applies to an individual who embodies a political cautionary tale about the perils of peaking too early: former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R). Walker was an early front-runner for the 2016 Republican nomination whose star quickly flamed out once the primary got underway. 

Make no mistake, the same thing could happen to Ron DeSantis in 2024. 

To be sure, in two recent Republican voter polls, from Suffolk University and the Wall Street Journal, DeSantis has emerged as the front-runner for the 2024 nomination. In a 2024 general election matchup, DeSantis is also polling ahead of President Biden, who is slightly favored in a head-to-head against Donald Trump.  

DeSantis’ reelection campaign also amassed a $200 million war chest, and he is currently sitting on more than $60 million that he is expected to redeploy into a federal super PAC if he decides to run for the nation’s highest office. GOP mega-donors such as Blackstone CEO Steven Schwarzman and Citadel leader Ken Griffin have pledged to either not support Trump, or have committed to backing DeSantis. 

That being said, Ron DeSantis is vulnerable for many of the same reasons that Scott Walker was in 2016, and there is a very real chance that DeSantis, like Walker, flames out quickly once the campaign begins. 

As governor of Florida, DeSantis has presided over a worsening affordability crisis, driven by the state’s deteriorating property insurance market and increased energy costs, and has come under fire for prioritizing the interests of big business over the welfare of Floridians. 

Florida’s state legislature recently passed legislation that would essentially act as a giveaway to insurance companies, which DeSantis signed into law. The so-called reform does nothing to help residents, limits Floridians’ rights to sue, and could potentially raise premiums as much as 20 percent without any recourse. 

DeSantis has also faced backlash over the massive rate hike imposed by Florida Power and Light — which hit Panhandle residents particularly hard — and specifically for working to benefit large corporations at the expense of rate-payers. 

Though he began his career as a moderate, DeSantis has recently moved aggressively to the far-right in an attempt to court the largest and most vocal single constituency in the Republican Party, those who describe themselves as “very conservative,” comprising nearly 40 percent of the party’s base. 

DeSantis has made decrying the “woke” left the centerpiece of his platform and has a record of exploiting divisive social issues for political gain. As governor, he has treated migrants as political pawns by sending them on planes to liberal cities, penalized Disney for diverging from his political views, politicized LGBTQ rights and was at the forefront of the culture wars over COVID-19 restrictions. 

With his sights set on the Republican nomination, DeSantis has become even more extreme in the last several months. He recently hinted that he is seeking to further limit abortion access in Florida, and wants to reduce the state’s current 15-week ban to a 6-week ban, which would make it among the most restrictive laws in the country. 

During the midterms, DeSantis also campaigned for two extremist Trump-backed candidates who lost their respective races, Blake Masters in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, neither of whom would seem on their own worthy of attention from a governor who appeared initially to be fighting a difficult reelection campaign. 

Further, like Walker was, DeSantis is untested and untried on a national stage. He isn’t known for having natural charisma and is not always particularly good with people, having reportedly only appeared for 20 minutes at what was billed as an “intimate dinner” with core supporters in Miami. 

The Florida governor also has thin skin and often becomes defensive when he is not speaking to friendly right-wing media outlets. This alone could take DeSantis out of the running early on as he faces former President Donald Trump, a charismatic performer whose schoolyard bullying tactic has ended the political ambitions of Republicans who were even more seasoned than DeSantis. 

Trump’s new nickname for DeSantis, “Ron DeSanctimonious,” is just the tip of the iceberg. Few Republicans have proven themselves able to survive a head-to-head fight with Trump, and it is not hard to envision a scenario in which DeSantis wilts as soon as he steps onto the national stage and becomes the primary target of Trump’s tirades. 

That being said, Trump’s once ironclad grip on the base of the Republican Party does appear to be in real jeopardy of slipping for the first time since his entrance into Republican politics in 2015. However, some polls still show Trump with an early advantage and the fervently loyal cult of personality around the former president within some parts of the Republican Party has by no means deteriorated. 

Put another way, it is an open question whether Ron DeSantis will be able to sustain the lead he currently holds over Donald Trump, as well as the modest advantage he maintains over Joe Biden, once the campaign gets underway. 

But if the history of Scott Walker is any guide, Ron DeSantis will face challenges early and often from a very skeptical public that is watching the emergence of someone who, whatever his actual worldview, became a moderate to win the governorship and is now moving forcefully to the far-right in an effort to undermine the third candidacy of his former mentor and now top opponent, former President Donald Trump. 

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. He is the author of “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”