Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida began the race for the Republican nomination with high expectations and a clear argument: that he was a political fighter with a solid record of conservative achievements in his state. Now, he appears to be in a downward spiral.
Shane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The Times, explains why the DeSantis campaign is stumbling so badly.
Guest: Shane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- Governor DeSantis, who has been losing ground in polls and dealing with staffing, spending and messaging issues, tweaks his messaging and tactics.
- Here are four major challenges facing his campaign.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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when it is, the army see emanate podcast today from new york times, I'm likeable laura is today in the twenty twenty four republican race for president new came. He began with higher expectation.
the net of florida, governor rhonda scientist.
So why is his campaign nope stumble
so badly
my colleague
among explains
the Monday august. Twenty first shame chemical. It is really nice to sit across from you. So thank you for coming in thanks for having me- and we are here you and I to perform a kind of mid campaign autopsy
on the republican presidential candidacy of RON Desantis, and to talk through why it is that campaign has been going so poorly, knowing, of course, that things can change that it's still early nobody's voted yet anywhere, but that, even with all those caveats
campaign is in a pretty bad way. Yeah I mean, I would say autopsies may be a strong word. The candidacy of ron de santis is very much still alive, he's very much still donald trump
leading opponent, but what you are right about is the depths of the challenges that he's been facing. Both internal and external challenges. Externally he struggling. He struggled to connect with voters. He struggling to have his message meet. Voters were they are an internally. He struggling with his campaign finances and his campaign staff he's gone through a series of shake ups and is only a couple months into this race. Right and campaigns are all about projecting strength, and
This campaign, especially with all of its very public jacobs, is not projecting strength and willingness, but instead a kind of internal conflict, but that wasn't how things started for dissenters. So I want to go back and ocean how it is we got to this seemingly pretty low point for the campaign. Having strength is a really good place to start when you think about rhonda santas and to think about the place of strength. He was in last november, right after the mid term
firms ballots are still being counted in some states, but already a losers.
declared in the mid term election. The pandit say it was donald trump were already seeing. Some republicans distancing themselves from him and even blaming his endorsement for key law.
Is this time around the all? Remember that republicans and races across the country house, races and senate racism governors races, republicans were backed by donald trump. They lost races that the party had expected to wait right,
this is supposed to be a red wave and in most of the country I wasn't, there was a red wave last night when it started in florida and it ended in Florida. But forty was an exception to that. A disaster for donald trump and a true,
for his number one rival, rhonda santos Florida, traditional purple state of swing state, broader scientists. He dominated these are margins that you do not often
in a state like florida, be one in a landslide nineteen percentage points. They picked up how seats in florida. This right here could be the perfect springboard into a presidential campaign in so what they gave. Rhonda scientist was a real contrast with Donald trump recent
freedom and our very way of life in so many other jurisdictions in this country. With on the vine that I'm republican, you can win that. I can form a message that we can sell to the rest of the.
country war. It held the line, even if it's a conservative, hardline message that I can do it in a way that can win in
So you saw the beginnings of the buzz around
Rhonda scientists as a potential presidential candidate
that he could be trump but electable and republican who can win while pursuing,
hard line, conservative agenda and, amid that buzz rhonda sent his has to make a choice
Does he jump into the race, then, when the iron is hot, or does he
and continue to add to those conserve achievements and build out a policy portfolio as the basis of a twenty twenty four campaign right and the reason, of course, to jump in
as you just said, trump is extraordinarily vulnerable. Your politics is often about timing right and
you see just a week later, it's donald trump who actually gets into the presidential race,
and there wasn't really lot of excitement at that moment for donald trump. There was this real sense across the republican party that maybe this is a moment to move on. Maybe he had served his purpose for the party shifted the party, but he was no longer going to help them into the future. So the thinking at this key moment, if you're too santos,
His advisers is seize the moment right emerge as declare yourself to be the heir apparent trump win: the hearts and
of above republican voters who are tired of losing you have just one.
If everybody, what a winner you are enter the race? That's one possibility and that's the path not taken. Instead, the decision was from the santa's team know they weren't going to go, then they're going to go later and they are going to use policy as the way to break through against donald trump and the way their news policy is to push through a conservative agenda in the state legislature that he has almost complete control over in the first half of the year and that that will form the foundation.
Of his twenty twenty four candidacy and a direct confrontation with donald trump, the back and wait right, and there would seem to be real logic to that not running and instead passing all these laws in florida. That would let him hold up his state and his governance,
as a conservative laboratory and a kind of promise of what a santas presidency would look like across the whole country.
which is useful and our public and primary, where the voters tend to be hard right,
There would, however, seem to be one clear downside, which is that it opens up a pretty big vacuum in the national media,
and in the campaign that trump could then exploit and nobody exploits vacuous better than donald trump. So they have to understand. That was a risk. I think you have to think about it from rhonda synthesis perspective, which is for the years that had become a national figure as floored as governor. He really didn't have to see the national stage because he was creating his own political, whatever that he would get coverage on fox news and other friendly conservative outlets for basically what ever he was doing, that he could roll out a book and that he would get coverage that he could make it
smith and he would get coverage, and so I don't think he thought of it is seeding the stage interesting as much as building a foundation that he could use to eventually challenge donald trump from an even firmer place. Then he would of right after the mid term, but that isn't what happens as down from his them.
for years that the republican party he begins to dominate the weather and it really starts when
indicted in new york for crimes related to hush money payments made in his twenty. Sixteen presidential campaign right trump fund raises off of that raising millions of dollars, as I recall and dissent as whose,
yet a candidate doesn't really seem to know what to do about it.
Member an episode we did and which we talked about. The centres is kind of confusing response. He suggested that
The indictment was a little tawdry, but then he went on to defend trump against the indictment kind of bends, the knee a bit too trump, and suddenly the decision not to be
stated rival in the race seems not necessarily like a brilliant one. Yeah, you see the republican party rally behind donald trump and because rhonda santas was not in the race
as there was no leading alternative to trump. Yet formerly in the race. Trump was the person to rally behind and there wasn't a person to say. Oh, maybe we should get behind this guy instead, but then, eventually to say this does finally enter the campaign. I mean for those who could hear him on twitter. He entered the campaign
Remind us what happened. It was kind of a thing. Yes, so you got into the recent late may was an event on twitter. You I tried to log into they decided to try to do something unique. We're broke up,
and not do a traditional speech for his first event. Not do a video roll out immediately or super excited to have covered scientists and they tried to do this. Twitter live spaces. Alright, sorry about that. We are. We've got so many people here that I think we are. We are kind of melting the servers and it was sorta
technical disaster that wasn't answer, we cut it out through a long pause in the audio moment. The retirement to freedom.
Work is money mounted his mouth locked up in europe that, and you know four round his aunt is governor settlers. Then, are you there? Let them here, and I know I think I think you broke the internet there. We had stepped on the message she was trying to launch on that first day and it sounds kind of small and we're having a little bit of fun with this idea that a campaign launches a technical failure, but compare announcements have always in politics, been seems kind of metaphors for campaigns how well choreograph they are, however, plan they are. What's the speed
how big the audience? How because the flag behind the podium- and here where every decision was in control of the candidate decisions, were made that resulted in some kind of embarrassing and floppy. He I mean I would. I would call it symbolic, but not significant great, but if the twitter want wasn't particularly significant in, he does run into some significant problems pretty quickly, which are what
which money, so he raised twenty million dollars in only a short number of weeks. In fact, he raised more than any other candidate running in that second coordinate toward the problem. The problem is served threefold. The first is what kind of money he was raising.
which is big money, money from larger donors who you can't go to over and over again so he tapped, the monster, can ever
back to them. There's limits in federal campaigns to how much money you can raise for basically, fat cats, fat cats see fat cats who can give only a certain amount he had
Mt he can't get money from them again, so I ve been tapped out. The second problem with his money is that a lot of it was from such big donors that he exceeded the amount you can spend in the primary any banked a bunch of money. He can own
spend in the general election if he becomes the nominee, then hotline
has twenty million dollars? Well, not really twenty million dollars you can actually spend turns out. It was closer to
fifteen million dollars that he could actually spend. Let me just make sure I understand that, because of the nature of who he was raising money from and the dollar amounts, they were contributing a bunch of that money.
cannot be used in the primary under the rules. It gets balanced over carried over to that.
Election, which means a lot of his kind walled away its tone.
meanwhile, the way you can only get three thousand three hundred dollars from a donor. The even using the primary
so he was raising from a lot of people, six thousand six hundred dollars. So half that money he can't spend it shows up in the banking,
but he's got a little like color coding, says you know what this money you can't you
until at least next year and you're, not the nominee. You gotta give it back really interesting. Ok, what's the third issue, the third issue is spending rhonda santas was spending
a pretty big chunk of the money he was bringing in. He was spending on private planes. He was spending on a fancy launch that accompany that twitter
all out, which was at the four seasons in miami any spending and
Is there were unsustainable, so too much spending and from donor to give too much
quickly here. What he was missing is the small donors, the small donors who are increasingly the life blood of national campaigns, the people who give twenty bucks a month. Sometimes they check box to give it every month, and it really becomes this sustainable source of money. For came
and this is what trumpets has built a small dollar machine, and when we got the first disclosures for RON de his campaign, it's very much not what he is built.
Which was top heavy and had only wasn't. I think fifteen percent of all this money came from people gave less than two hundred dollars and it would seem that not getting small donors is not just, of course, a financial dilemma, but a reflection of the fact that, as a candid
The sentence is not winning the hearts and minds of working class and middle class republican voters, where the grass roots of
already right the people who are inspired or enough to give
Money doesn't necessarily mean your winning having the most donors. Doesn't an you're the best candidate, but is one of those ways you can measure enthusiasm and what
Oh, is that he didn't have that level of enthusiasm, certainly to be competitive with donald trump. So what is this heavy spending things like plans, fancy events and the absence of these small dollar donations, or does it altogether
led to it leads to a really turbulent period for the dissenting campaign. They make cutbacks to his staff in MID July run. Ten people are, let go
not too much longer another twenty five or more people. Let go at this point you're. Looking at something like forty percent, his entire campaign
ass had been removed in cost cutting weigh up the pretty traumatic thing for a candle
It has only been alive for a few months. It's a very dramatic thing right then, after that comes a third round which is his campaign manager and his campaign manager is replaced
and so now you have this really unusual situation of a new candidate just a few months. It is run whose face three successive resets,
and suddenly braun dissent, as is at risk of being a cannon
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Hey it's Anna Morton from the new york times, and I m here to tell you about something for new york times news subscribers and honestly. If you're, Pakistan you're going to monitor this, it's an app called new york times audio. We,
get the latest dispatch its tat. I am, and he knew was a really
nice perfect. You technique, splash,
we're sauce and then a lot of red pepper flakes contemplate the future. A computer program is passing the.
For example, we are over here pretending not to be amazed by that it has exclusive.
from the new york times it's the headlines, storytelling from cereal production and this american life to a fiasco involving a village, marauding visigoths and some oil sports fan the athletic and those big moment,
she puts gmos back and narrated articles from the time,
and beyond. In recent years, the unexpected sounds of ice have periodically gone viral,
sometimes audio download it now at n Y times, dot com, slash audio app shane? What do you come to understand is really going on behind all these upheavals and kind of failure to lodge and how much of it do you under
and to be about these strategic problems like over spending and how much of it is about just a political strategy. That's not working, not meeting, voters and donors where they are. I mean I cover politics, Michael and so our pay a lot of attention to how campaigns work and how they operate, how the fund themselves and how the reach voters photoshop
attention to any of these things right? They don't know who the campaign manager is they don't care that you've cut back your staff, but
in the middle of all of these cutbacks, the new york times, did our first poll of the twenty twenty four presidential cycle, and I think that poll showed the other side of what's happening with the descent, his candidacy, which is not the struggles to get their books in shape and to have the right size campaign staff. It's a more fundamental question, which is, is the message that Rhonda Santos is selling connecting with
hoboken voter season, and what does that poor tell us? I mean the pull, doesn't have a lot of good news for onto santas. It showed
losing in a landslide donald trump, and I think the specifics of the pool, or even worse than that top line and the specifics undercut some of the core things that he's made is king
see about clean or something you already talked about, like that he could be the electable republican and twenty twenty. Four
in primary voters were asked. Well, who do you think is better described, is able to be Joe Biden. They chose donald trump by two to one margin and is a twofold problem on the oct ability question in the pool, because it's not just the republican voter saw trumpets more electable in the survey. It's that republican voters warrant that into ability in the first place,
that when given a choice between, would you like a candidate who mostly agrees with you on the issues or somebody who you think is better able to be Joe Biden more republican to say? Actually I want somebody agrees with me on the issue, so just the basic idea that winning would be the most important thing wasn't something that was top of mine for public and voters in our ports,
at the end of July sheen. How should we understand because, as we talked about earlier, the midterm losses of trump back candidates, not to mention the fact that trump law
but twenty twenty election, not to mention the fact that trump has now been indicted several times. All those seem to provide a real opening for dissent is important
or to come into this race and say I can win and elect ability should matter and now is the thinking. But what we see is that it's been a real struggle to get that to be the top issue that tramping indicted his rallied republicans behind him he's still seen as the parties leader and then there's been. This surprise factor, which is nothing do through problem, is at all, which is president Biden.
Which is the republicans, are seeing clips of president Biden packaged on fox news and other outlets, and just if they're, watching his speeches than that he he's tripping over his words in one case is literally tripping.
stage- and it is made this argument to Joe biden- has some all powerful force that we must pick the most delectable person has made it a tougher sell, a really interesting. The Joe Biden has seen its so biddable. They look, anyone can beat him and said
Yeah trump has different things. That is not as good added. Maybe he lost. Maybe they don't even think that he lost, but they somehow biden himself. His own perceived weakness has made the elect ability argument. A tough herself got it. I'm really curious about the
the plank that decide to spaces campaign on which was the can
Wednesday, wrapped up in florida and the argument that, in addition,
who elect ability he's been able to pass a deeply conservative agenda. Does our pole touch on that at all the pulled didn't and go through his particular cheeseman centrality ass? He, but what it did cover some of the issues thereon assent is his based his candidacy on issues like a six week, abortion ban, which is one thing that he did pass in florida and talking about whether you want to prioritize taking on woke corporations or not, which is something else that rhonda sentences very closely aligned with right in here.
The tricky thing again for on dissenters in this poll and why it had so little good news for him. It showed that no matter which side of these issues you are on, you preferred donald trump, and this was pretty remarkable. The six week abortion ban, which trump has been critical of which he has said, is too harsh. If you think this law is bad, you wanted donald trump. If you think this law is good. You also wanted donald trump amazing, if you think
that you should go after the woke corporations. You want a doubt on trump, if you think you shouldn't be going after the woke corporations. You also wanted donald trump. It really showed a tough pathway for auto centers that is
weren't resonating and even among the voters who cared about the particular issues these focused on, he wasn't winning those voters either. So this pool seems to be come a red alert moment for dissent as on top of whatever financial problems he's having with his candidacy, because, as you ve pretty well established, it doesn't really leave him with much of an argument for being in the rates will. This is just the national law, but we did and other pull that week. There was about iowa in that Paul had a little bit more hope, verandah santas. At the top lines it showed a closer race. He was losing to donald trump by a big margin, but it was forty four percent to twenty percent verses. These thirty seven point gap that he had Ashley
and the poll showed that there was a little more traction for the question of who do you see as better able to be Joe Biden in a head to head mash up? Do you think that its donald trump do you think it's rhonda santas in iowa tromp was ahead, but a much narrow margin by about nine points compared to the thirty percentage points that he led by national and that's why you're starting to see a real shift in into santa's campaign itself? They ve almost downsized their ambitions from being a completely national campaigns
on from everywhere to being in I based campaign
and the reason why the sentences focusing in iowa is that I was the first state that votes and the twenty twenty four primary in four years. Tat an outsized impact on,
shaping the race, not necessary, picking the nominee but shaping whether this is going to be a contest at all. So it's the place where rondo centers could potentially take a chunk out of trump and show that the former president isn't so inevitable in two thousand twenty four particularly islands. They appreciate when you show up, particularly in some of the smaller communities, because
people who overlook that so we're going everywhere. Where he's made the promise that he's gonna visit all ninety nine, if I was counties, many of which are very small, more and doing things like a bus tour, stopping a gas stations doing
town halls and meetin greets yesterday were playing catch, the county, fair county right next month,
you know he's got little anecdote about his son and he took asunder play catching iowa and his son says: there's this Heaven and he says
no son. This is I separated, like he's leaning into the. I will campaign in a way that it wrong descent was not a few months ago bless the gray.
state of iowa god bless tee
united. Let's go on. Thank you and god bless you all, and you were just there on the ground in iowa. So I'm curious how you found republicans thinking about rhonda, santos and talking about him and how open they are to this electability
argument that so central to his candidacy. So I spent a few days in the domain area. Yet more than half of them went to the state fair, which draws a big cross section of islands from across the states a big event, and what do you make
We've seen the argument that the party needs somebody more or less the travel costs and- and I think that's comments that he was elected. It was a really interesting experience talking to a lot of republican voters, because what I heard
was a receptive to this to this elected billowy argument. More than frankly, I expected from Europe we want, can give me twice. I liked. What did I liked what he did to me? The jobs aspect trying the whole thing, but unthinkable a mockery. One thousand, but I'd like you to do likewise. There were people saying that they
concerns about trump, too much baggage too much of the democratic process now- and I did vote for my back to sitting there for the rest of the field. So, in most of the bullets, where most of the year ron dissent has been the leading candidate he's kind of fading- and I don't know why I think
It's the good guys and that's what I also heard was no consolidation behind RON de santis. I, like TIM Scott, I like that about here. I like elder, I, like term scott, your status,
I see people said like I thought he was going to be the guy and maybe he's out the guy, and I don't know why he's not the guy but he's not the guy. For me, just yet, maybe I'll consider him later seems like he's, got some great
It's something back, then I'm just trying to discover what that is because he hasn't taken off like I thought he should. Even people who came to see him speak specifically. They just weren't sold on RON de santis
yet, and so what I
heard from voters. There was this openness to finding somebody who wasn't trump, because their concern
and about losing in twenty twenty four, but the thing that really felt clear and
walking the voter after voter was honest. These people barely beginning their under
the ending of these candidates in a lot of a more just and
didn't learning more. I mean the thing about talking to voters, Michael at this stage of erases europe,
it how early it is, and so you may not have closed the deal with you will, because people have barely started tuning in in most of the country right, and I think, that's probably about to change. We have the first debate of the primary she's in coming up this week and it's a pretty critical moment for onto santas and his best chance. Yet to make the argument did
he's a Republican who can win and then deliver a conservative agenda in a way the donald trump can do. Neither so is it your sense, despite the roller coaster of a campaign that we observe so far that elect ability is still the rule,
strategy for dissent as to make the argument to republican voters, even though it didn't bear the national paul and
has an entirely borne out in the ilo poor that he is the best alternative trump. I think for all the republicans
dont want donald trump to be. There are many,
They need elect ability to work that there is no campaign that takes out donald trump without that, because most republicans in every Paul still like donald trump and no one has found a better issue, then elected billowy to try to take people away from him who still like him as and worked yet. But I haven't talked to a republican who thinks
have some other magic bullet that will work better, that understanding their reality does make. You realise that even
We have spent a lot of time in this conversation talking about the dramas and maybe the flaws of the dissenters campaign. It's very possible that even if Rhonda santos had so far run a flawless superb upheaval, free candidacy, he might be in exactly the same position that he's in right. Now I mean ronda sant, has hasn't solved a problem that no Republican has solved since Donald trump emerged on the national stage in two thousand and fifteen, which is how to beat donald trump
right and in that way, rhonda's hence, is just the latest in a long line of candidates who haven't yet figured out a formula to pull away the party's base from the president, who they still love and pushing. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll be right, back support for this podcast and the following message: come from emerson and emerson engineers, designers and thinkers help, the world's most essential industries solve the biggest challenges of modern life from developing technology that delivers breakthrough medicines that were speed to software. That turns clean energy into reliable electricity emerson. Innovation helps make the world healthier.
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