‘Bootgate’ and pudding fingers: How Ron DeSantis became 2024’s presidential punchline
The past few months haven’t been easy sailing for the crew of the S.S. DeSantis, tossed around as they were by senior staff firings, a super PAC that seems to be actively hurting its candidate and the disappearance of nearly every major DeSantis megadonor. Just a few months ago, Republican media outlets feted Ron DeSantis as the future Trump-slayer. Now, the Florida governor’s team can barely keep the lights on.
Through it all, DeSantis has remained committed to the idea that if he just focuses on the issues, the voters will eventually come to their senses. But the governor’s bad habit of biting at any baited hook explains how DeSantis wound up in the headlines not for his policy ideas but for the miasma of weirdness that seems to surround his every move.
DeSantis recently sat down with entrepreneur and podcaster Patrick Bet-David for what should have been a pretty friendly interview. But this being a DeSantis media event, the wheels fell off almost immediately. DeSantis clearly wasn’t prepared when Bet-David asked him about an online conspiracy theory that claims the allegedly 5-foot-11-inch presidential hopeful is adding a few inches to his height by concealing lifts in his cowboy boots.
The visual of the swaggering Florida governor tip-toeing around in effeminate lifts was too much for the right-wing social media universe to resist. Bet-David’s segment went viral. Professional shoemakers weighed in. Even presidential son Donald Trump Jr. got in on the fun, mocking DeSantis for his “insecurity.” The whole humiliating event solidified DeSantis’s standing as the 2024 campaign’s biggest presidential punchline.
Whether or not DeSantis wears lifts in his boots isn’t, in itself, a very important fact. But the media furor around yet another awkward DeSantis outing explains why his campaign has struggled so mightily to reboot itself despite multiple (expensive) attempts. According to social media trends data, Americans who searched for DeSantis during the past week were nearly 10 times more likely to click on a story about his footwear woes than they were to view any other news about him. For some of those users, DeSantis’s scandal will be the only thing they read about him all month.
That poses a life-and-death problem for DeSantis, because his campaign has now become known almost exclusively for its various misfires. Pudding fingers? The weird laugh? Those infinitely replayable media moments have consumed DeSantis’s messaging operation. After shedding a first round of staff, his new communications hires are clearly more focused on getting their boss booked than they are about whether those bookings actually advance the campaign’s goals. It’s hard to imagine anyone was pleased with DeSantis’s latest public fumble.
DeSantis’s presidential hopes dimmed as his reputation for clownery rose. A RealClearPolitics average of Republican primary polling shows DeSantis hemorrhaging voter share, from nearly 40 percent in February to just 11 percent in a recent Messenger/HarrisX poll. Republicans curious to get a good look at their much-advertised post-Trump future have deserted DeSantis in droves, driven in large part by his unparalleled social awkwardness.
DeSantis is likely thinking about which path offers him the most dignified exit from the 2024 campaign, even if that thought is, for now, locked away in his head. In Iowa, where DeSantis has never placed first in a single primary poll, his support has fallen by half. He now ranks third in New Hampshire, and could soon be eclipsed in the Granite State by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. If DeSantis’s team sees a path to the nomination, even they can’t explain it.
Now DeSantis is settling into his role as an all-purpose political punching bag. Presidential hopefuls Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Christie have all taken swipes at DeSantis in the hopes of reviving their own stagnant campaigns. In debates, DeSantis now spends as much time being mocked as he does speaking.
None of that adds up to an inspiring campaign, let alone a winning one. DeSantis’s donors are tired of being embarrassed and are increasingly saying so publicly. This time it will take more than a campaign reboot to convince DeSantis’s weary money men that the Florida governor is still a winning bet.
Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.