When Governor Ron DeSantis announced his candidacy for president on Wednesday, confirming years of speculation, he gave a speech on the Twitter verse that touched on themes most Republicans would follow: he would build a border wall, end the inflation and, more importantly, he would defeat President Joe Biden in November 2024.
But DeSantis followed that standard campaign rhetoric with a wide-ranging discussion that touched on a number of niche issues. Alongside billionaire Elon Musk and a supporting cast of other sympathetic conservatives, DeSantis has delved into the concerns of a certain kind of hip Republican: tech censorship and cryptocurrency regulation.
“As president, we will protect the ability to do things like bitcoin,” DeSantis said at one point.
The scattered nature of his audio-only Twitter kickoff event highlighted a larger challenge for DeSantis as he pushes through his presidential campaign: How can he build a winning coalition of Republican voters? Young and old, white and blue collar, Never Trump and Ultra MAGA — DeSantis will likely need the support of a group of voters with broad priorities for the best former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.
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He will also have to walk a digital tightrope. Trump leads DeSantis by an average of more than 30 points in national polls, according to RealClearPolitics. Three pollsters polled by the Tampa Bay Times estimated that at least a third of GOP primary voters are staunch Trump supporters. DeSantis has virtually no chance of attracting this block, they said.
“It’s a terribly important foundation to get started in a multi-candidate field,” said Matthew Shelter, a partner at political polling firm Beacon Research.
Beacon found that about 40% of GOP voters consider themselves Trump supporters more than they consider themselves Republican Party supporters, Shelter said.
How DeSantis plans to get the other two-thirds
When fundraisers from across the country gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel Miami earlier this week to give DeSantis a boost — he raised $8.2 million in the first 24 hours, according to the campaign — they were first briefed by the governor’s top sounder and other staff on their potential path to victory.
The goal was not to alienate anyone from Trump’s stronghold. Instead, the DeSantis camp strategized on how best to capture the rest of the voters.
Evangelical voters are an important part of this strategy. DeSantis supporters believe they will be swayed by his anti-revival crusades against LGBTQ+ inclusive school lessons, as well as his recent signing of a bill banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
On Monday evening, DeSantis spoke at the convention of national religious broadcasters, billed as “the world’s largest gathering of Christian broadcasters.”
“The people who are in power now don’t like people of faith, and so we have to control this government,” DeSantis told them.
DeSantis’ team also touted his 2022 success with female voters — a bloc Trump lost in the 2016 and 2020 general elections. And DeSantis has consistently done well with college-educated Republicans.
“You have to reach 50% plus one of Republican voters, and I think DeSantis has the ability to get support from every constituency in the Republican Party,” said lobbyist Justin Sayfie, who was one of the people collecting. funds for DeSantis in Miami. “From Chamber of Commerce types, to Make America Great Again types, to anti-revival types to evangelicals — all of these constituencies Governor DeSantis can do well with.”
Brad Coker, a longtime Jacksonville-based political pollster, said DeSantis might be able to build a coalition by winning over staunch conservatives first. If he is able to outlast the rest of the non-Trump candidates, he will be the only alternative available to the moderates.
DeSantis’ prospects are better in a one-on-one matchup against Trump, according to a poll, but the Republican field continues to expand, potentially diluting DeSantis’ support. Last week, South Carolina U.S. Senator Tim Scott entered the race, and former Vice President Mike Pence is expected to announce it in the coming weeks.
“How does DeSantis get to moderate Republicans? He has to make it a two-man race,” Coker said. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that’s the principle that DeSantis will use to attract people from the ‘center’ of the Republican Party.”
DeSantis already appears to be trying to outflank Trump on red meat issues like abortion. Earlier this month, Trump called the abortion bill DeSantis signed “tough.” In response, DeSantis noted that such legislation has “99% pro-life” support.
And in a dozen media appearances on Thursday, DeSantis continued to punch Trump from the right.
“I don’t know what happened to Donald Trump. He’s a different guy now than when he was running in 2015 and 2016,” he told an interviewer.
Find DeSantis’ base
Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for super pro-Trump PAC Make America Great Again Inc., said the launch of DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces campaign featured more mentions of “DEI” — an acronym for diversity initiatives, equity and inclusion that DeSantis opposes — than inflation, a sign that his campaign is out of touch with regular voters.
“Where is his base?” she says. “He votes closer to [former Arkansas governor] Asa Hutchinson than Donald Trump at this point in the race, so he has no basis.
Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster, wrote in an analysis earlier this month that DeSantis is most likely to appeal to the bloc of Republican voters most concerned about revival. These voters view political correctness as a scourge on schools and businesses and support candidates who want to fight it. They are more likely to be younger, college-educated and non-white than other party factions, Ruffini wrote.
They’re also more likely to use Twitter — where DeSantis launched his presidential campaign.
State Representative Alex Rizo, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party who raised money for DeSantis at the Four Seasons, said he “loved” the idea of making the announcement on Twitter.
“As Republicans, we want to start recruiting young people who are engaged,” Rizo said. “When it comes to technology, there’s no better way to reach out.”
DeSantis’ campaign hopes his focus on evangelical voters will pay off in Iowa, which is home to a large number of Christian conservatives. (Trump lost the Iowa caucuses to U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in 2016.)
The governor’s primary strategy at the start of the state appears to be aimed at proving to Republicans that he is a winner. He has shifted much of his campaign energy to the early primary states, scrapping a supposed event in his hometown of Dunedin for events next week in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Nick Iarossi, a key DeSantis fundraiser and longtime ally, said he noticed an “instant transformation” now that he was officially in the race, saying DeSantis was thrilled to compete.
“He was tired of operating with one hand behind his back,” Yarossi said. “The guy I saw [Thursday] the night was super pleasant, full of energy. . . [and] will be very effective during the election campaign.
Marquette Law School poll director Charles Franklin – who recently saw Trump lead DeSantis by 21 points – noted that there is room for DeSantis’ stature in the party to evolve, as he is less familiar to Republicans across the country.
“While Trump is absolutely universally known, there are still Republicans learning about DeSantis,” Franklin said.
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Still, according to pollsters, DeSantis has a lot of work to do.
Tim Malloy, polling analyst for the Quinnipiac University poll, was candid about DeSantis’ core support.
“Whatever DeSantis’ base is right now, it’s not good enough,” Malloy said.
Miami Herald Tallahassee bureau reporter Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.