DeSantis And The Trump Bump

In this morning's headlines at The Hill: DeSantis sees lowest level of support since December in new poll, trails Trump by 28 points:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) received just 26 percent support in the latest GOP presidential poll from Morning Consult — the lowest number he’s hit in the survey since December.

DeSantis, who has not entered the GOP primary but is expected to do so, trailed former President Trump, who won 54 percent, by 28 percentage points in the new poll published on Tuesday.

It's worth pointing out that predsidential polls this far out from an election year are meaningless. A quick web search brings this from NBC News in June 2015:

A brand-new national NBC/WSJ poll finds Jeb Bush leading the crowded Republican presidential field, with 22% of GOP primary voters saying he’s their first choice. He’s followed by Scott Walker at 17%, Marco Rubio at 14%, and Ben Carson at 11%. While Jeb had a similar five-point lead in our April NBC/WSJ poll, you see his current position has strengthened when you look inside the numbers of this new poll. (It was conducted during the buildup and coverage of Bush’s official presidential announcement on June 16.) The latest survey shows him ahead among self-identified conservative GOP primary voters -- when he was in third place in April behind Rubio and Walker. And as we unveiled on Sunday, 75% of Republican primary voters in our new poll say they could see themselves supporting Bush -- up from 70% in April and 49% in March.

By December 2015, the picture had radically changed:

Donald Trump just got a little more vault in his ceiling. Nationwide, the polling-obsessed Manhattan multi-billionaire and leading Republican presidential candidate broke into the 40s on Monday.

According to the results of the latest Monmouth University pollsurveying voters identifying as Republican or independents leaning toward the GOP, Trump earned 41 percent, nearly tripling the support of his closest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who took 14 percent.

. . . Monmouth’s survey also held good news for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who moved up to 10 percent support and third place, and bad news for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who plummeted from 18 percent in October to 9 percent in this latest survey. Other candidates, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, polled within the margin of error, with 6 percent remaining undecided.

Searching the web for more on 2015, I ran into this essay at the Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Meida, Politics, and Public Policy:

[D]uring the year 2015, major news outlets covered Donald Trump in a way that was unusual given his low initial polling numbers—a high volume of media coverage preceded Trump’s rise in the polls. Trump’s coverage was positive in tone—he received far more “good press” than “bad press.” [But of course, as others say, there's no such thing as "bad press". ]The volume and tone of the coverage helped propel Trump to the top of Republican polls.

. . . Although journalists play a political brokering role in presidential primaries, their decisions are driven by news values rather than political values. Journalists are attracted to the new, the unusual, the sensational—the type of story material that will catch and hold an audience’s attention. Trump fit that need as no other candidate in recent memory. Trump is arguably the first bona fide media-created presidential nominee. Although he subsequently tapped a political nerve, journalists fueled his launch.

. . . Journalists seemed unmindful that they and not the electorate were Trump’s first audience. Trump exploited their lust for riveting stories. He didn’t have any other option. He had no constituency base and no claim to presidential credentials. If Trump had possessed them, his strategy could have been political suicide, which is what the press predicted as they showcased his tirades. Trump couldn’t compete with the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush on the basis of his political standing or following. The politics of outrage was his edge, and the press became his dependable if unwitting ally.

This is precisely what's happening now, for good or ill. Recall from my post yesterday that Trump himself broke the story of his impending arrest, which nevertheless hasn't happened as predicted, but House Republicans have hopped gleefully onto the bandwagon:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg faces a Thursday deadline to come forward to appear before three congressional panels for a transcribed interview, the chairman of one of those committees told Breitbart News exclusively here at the House GOP retreat.

“We gave him until Thursday to come forward,” House Administration Committee chairman Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) told Breitbart News of the push to bring Bragg in. “We look forward to his response.”

Steil chairs one of the three congressional committees—the others being the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and the House Oversight Committee chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-KY)—that demanded Bragg appear for a transcribed interview with congressional investigators to explain his rationale in the looming indictment of former President Donald Trump.

As long as this kabuki continues, it's good for Trump, and he'll continue to look good in the polls. The conventional wisdom is that Bragg and the leftists who've pressured him to move are doing the worst possible thing for themselves, unless you atrribute to them a calculation that this will give Trump the 2024 nomination and make him an easy target for whomever the Democrats nominate. Actually, I think it's still too early for that sort of handicapping.

But I don't rule DeSantis out. In his interview with Piers Morgan last week, he made a good case against Trump on two major issues:

[I]n a series of jabs at likely his biggest rival for the Republican nomination, DeSantis slammed Trump over his character failings, chaotic leadership style, and for his handling of the COVID pandemic — especially in keeping controversial health chief Dr. Anthony Fauci in his post helping to run the White House coronavirus task force.

. . . When I asked DeSantis to cite specific differences between him and Trump, he said: “Well, I think there’s a few things. The approach to COVID was different. I would have fired somebody like Fauci. I think he got way too big for his britches, and I think he did a lot of damage.”

DeSantis also slammed Trump’s chaotic, self-obsessed, divisive management style: “I also think just in terms of my approach to leadership, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda. You bring your own agenda in, you’re gone. We’re just not gonna have that. 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.

". . . 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 in that interview is saying he isn't going to go after Trump on issues like Stormy Daniels -- they play into Trump's strategy, to stoke sensation and get press coverage, which benefits him no matter what. On the other hand, Stormy Daniels? I wouldn't go near someone like that without a hazmat suit. Somehow I think DeSantis has that much sense. In fact, my gut instinct is that DeSantis is that smart, and he's also ruthless.

Whoever goes after Trump has to be smart, which people like Liz Cheney or Alvin Bragg aren't. But they have to be ruthless and even mean, which is what you also have to be to beat the Democrats. I think DeSantis is the guy to watch.