DeSantis desperate; Trump dominating

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said something desperate yesterday morning, and seems to have lost the support of key donors. While this is happening, former President Donald J. Trump dominates the Republican primary as no non-incumbent has ever done.

DeSantis said what?

Gov. DeSantis appeared this morning on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futurres with Maria Bartiromo. He headlined one segment among many devoted mainly to what is wrong with the Biden administration. (In another segment, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., accused the FBI and the Justice Department of “insulating themselves from scrutiny.” And in a third, former Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., called the Biden administration “the most corrupt” in American history. Gingrich’s main point was to criticize Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin for her trip to mainland China.)

Fox News quoted DeSantis as saying the next person to become President must “clean house.” The rest of Fox News’ coverage did say the governor “took aim” at Trump, but gave no specifics. But Sarah Fortinsky of The Hill gave plenty of specifics, and what she quoted the governor as saying, set off a firestorm on Twitter. Specifically, she wrote that DeSantis blamed Trump for not firing certain agents and their supervisors after the FBI, “colluding” with Twitter and other social media organs, suppressed the Hunter Biden Laptop story. Regular readers will recall that Hunter Biden’s laptop was the subject of the original Twitter Files story, and one other.

I look back at the Hunter Biden censorship, which was a huge, huge deal to happen in the 2020 election, and yet those were Donald Trump’s own agencies that were colluding with Big Tech. I would never allow that to happen. I would fire those people immediately.

…

We will end the weaponization of government. And that’s, of course, a new FBI director on day one. That’s a difference between me and Donald Trump. He says the jury is still out on FBI Director [Christopher] Wray. I think you need a new start on day one. We’re going to clean house at the Department of Justice.

The Hill’s choice of headline is confusing, and seems to have created confusion. Fortinsky led with DeSantis accusing Trump administration agencies of “colluding” to bury the lede on Hunter Biden. But the headline reads, “DeSantis accuses Trump administration…” Anyone reading the headline would immediately assume DeSantis meant to accuse Trump of sabotaging his own campaign.

How certain conservative pundits reacted

Trump did say “the jury’s still out” on Director Wray – three years ago, in May of 2020, according to Mediaite. A year and a half later he called Wray “the worst member of my administration.” Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) put that in his memoir at the time, according to Business Insider. In any case, Trump will get his own chance to reply to DeSantis next Sunday, on Maria Bartiromo’s show.

The Hill tweeted out their article yesterday afternoon.

Almost at once, Jack Posobiec and Laura Loomer quote-tweeted it. Posobiec obviously consider the story absurd, while Loomer said DeSantis was acting under pressure.

Posobiec wasn’t done:

Another user disputed Posobiec’s interpretation – and Posobiec was having none of it.

The “UFC” reference was to Trump’s appearance at the United Fighting Championships on Saturday night. Here is one such video:

In response to Jack Posobiec’s last tweet, another pundit quoted a source saying the DeSantis team thinks Trump is nervous. This pundit disputed that claim.

That was when Laura Loomer said the most damning thing she’s said yet about the Florida governor.

How Trump dominates

Even before DeSantis’ appearance on Sunday Morning Futures, Mary Lou Masters at The Daily Caller wrote this piece about Trump’s dominance of the Republican Presidential primary process. She quoted Kyle Kondik at the University of Virginia as calling Trump’s dominance “unprecedented.”

This GOP primary is truly unprecedented, because Trump is not technically an incumbent, but Republican voters seem to be treating him as at least a quasi-incumbent. This primary is similar to 2016 in the sense that the field is large, meaning that it’ll be hard for a non-Trump to consolidate the non-Trump supporters.

The only other such “quasi-incumbent” in U.S. history might be Grover Cleveland, in the Election of 1892. He had served one term as President, then lost to Benjamin Harrison, and was back for a rematch. But even he could not dominate his primary field as Trump now does. To the contrary, he fought hard for the nomination and even harder to win re-election.

Trump has polled consistently at or close to a simple majority of Republican primary prospective voters. The two indictments of Trump have helped, not hurt, his candidacy. The Real Clear Politics average, as of yesterday, had Trump over the top at 53 percent. DeSantis places a distant second – a double-digit showing, but still second to a man carrying an outright majority.

How well Trump will do against Biden, depends on whom one asks. The RCP average has Trump ahead by 0.6 percent. Of the polls that make up that average, only the Emerson poll is that close. The best polls for Trump are the Harvard-Harris and Rasmussen polls. Rasmussen has always had the best reputation for accuracy and predictive value.

What can DeSantis do now?

Gov. DeSantis still has his dedicated supporters on Twitter – though how many are not campaign staff is impossible to say. But the polls tell the story. Trump clearly started to pull away after his indictments. The governor has only hurt himself since then.

Concerning his appearance on Sunday Morning Futures, perhaps Fox was trying to make it look better than it was. The Hill had no brief for the governor or the former President, and it showed in their article. (Though that choice of headline does raise questions. It definitely was inconsistent with the article.)

By yesterday evening, Trump hadn’t responded to DeSantis’ segment on Sunday Morning Futures. (He could be saving his fire for next week, when he appears on that program himself.) But perhaps, with his overwhelming lead in the polls, he doesn’t have to respond, at least not right away.