Ron DeSantis is reportedly getting a wake-up call from his donors. Despite once being touted as a potential threat to Donald Trump, the Florida governor has stumbled on the national stage as he attempts to make the case to Republican voters for why she should be on the top of the ticket. Instead, DeSantis has doubled down on culture war issues, like his ill-fated video that essentially argued he’s more anti-LGBTQ than Trump, and it’s not going over great. It’s never a good sign when your donors are telling major media outlets that they’d like it if you could be a little stupid.
“People want to support Ron but don’t like this kind of stupid stuff,” a DeSantis fundraiser told CNN. “There are people on his team who are trying to win petty wars that make Ron look stupid. If they get that taken care of and just let Ron and Casey be Ron and Casey, then they’ll be much better off.”
Conservative media has also not been impressed with DeSantis:
“Put bluntly, people in Ohio or Iowa do not want to be Florida, they don’t care about Florida, and they are tired of hearing about Florida,” [Erick] Erickson wrote to his subscribers.
Jeff Angelo, an influential conservative radio host in Iowa, said DeSantis risks coming off as “too technocratic.”
“DeSantis’ weakness is that he doesn’t tell a good emotional story about why he believes what he believes,” Angelo said. “You gotta give people all the feels.”
Interestingly, the news of DeSantis donors wanting him to get his act together arrives on the heels of a report that his campaign sent out a “confidential memo” that assured backers that the governor has a plan to secure the nomination. Namely, by building momentum in early states like New Hampshire instead of worrying about Super Tuesday.
However, sources close to the campaign told NBC News that if they don’t see a “bump in the polls,” they’re going to “shut down the idea of a national operation” a.k.a. pack it in.
(Via CNN)