Recent polls show the former president inching further ahead of DeSantis in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary contest.
Florida Gov. DeSantis is hitting back at Trump after weeks of staying silent in the face of escalating attacks by the former president.
DeSantis’ new offensive posture comes as he slips in polls of potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates. Though the governor hasn’t officially announced his campaign, he and Trump are considered the runaway favorites for the nomination.
DeSantis all but confirmed his future plans in an interview with British TV personality Piers Morgan, where he also lobbed several unsubtle jabs at Trump and asserted his ability to defeat President Joe Biden.
“I have what it takes to be president and I can beat Biden,” DeSantis told Morgan, according to Morgan’s write-up of the interview published in the New York Post.
About Trump’s insults, DeSantis described them as “just background noise.”
“It’s not important for me to be fighting with people on social media. It’s not accomplishing anything for the people I represent. So, we really just focus on knocking out victories, day after day. And if I got involved in all the undertow, I would not be able to be an effective governor,” he said.
Trump has nicknamed DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimonious” – something DeSantis brushed off.
“I mean, you can call me whatever you want, just as long as you also call me a winner because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida is put a lot of points on the board and really take this state to the next level,” DeSantis said of the nickname.
Trump has also labeled the governor a RINO – in other words, a traitor to the MAGA cause – and this week heightened his attacks by implying that DeSantis could face accusations of impropriety from “classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!).”
The escalation comes as a Manhattan district attorney weighs charges against Trump for his role in paying off a porn star during his 2016 campaign in a bid to keep her quiet about an extramarital affair she alleges she had with Trump.
DeSantis, like other Republicans, earlier this week condemned the investigation as a political attack but used the opportunity to needle Trump about the allegations underlying the probe – and to set himself apart from scandals involving porn stars.
“The reality is that’s just outside my wheelhouse. I mean, that’s just not something that I can speak to,” DeSantis repeated to Morgan.
DeSantis also appeared to criticize Trump’s propensity toward the dramatic in the interview with Morgan.
“So, the way we run the government, I think, is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board. And I think that’s something that’s very important,” he said.
Whether DeSantis’ newfound aggressiveness will pay off is an open question.
Earlier this year, DeSantis and Trump appeared neck and neck in several polls of hypothetical matchups for the GOP primary, with DeSantis beating Trump in some surveys.
But Trump has since pulled away from the governor, in both one-on-one matchups and when considering a wider field, according to an analysis of polling averages by The New York Times.
In a Morning Consult survey conducted over the weekend, Trump netted 54% of the Republican primary vote when considering a multi-candidate field, compared to 26% who say they’d vote for DeSantis. That distance narrows but holds when considering a hypothetical head-to-head matchup:
In a similar poll released last week by Quinnipiac University, Trump earned 46% of the Republican primary vote in a multi-candidate field vs. DeSantis’ 32% – a gap that has widened since February. That distance narrows but holds when considering a hypothetical head-to-head matchup: Trump received 51% of the vote and DeSantis received 40%.
It’s possible, too, that an indictment could boost Trump’s poll numbers even further. The former president has made no secret of the fact that he will use the Manhattan probe to galvanize his supporters.
It’s a strategy that may pay off. Last year, Trump’s poll numbers saw a bump in August after federal agents searched his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, for classified documents.
Source: US News