Ron DeSantis as New Coke

Where, exactly, is he different than Donald Trump?

(This is Ron DeSantis.)

On Monday night, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — after some feints — made clear his position on the United States’ involvement in Ukraine.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness with our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” said DeSantis via a statement that Fox News host Tucker Carlson read on his primetime show.

That view — that Ukraine is involved with a “territorial dispute” with Russia and that such a conflict is not in the “vital national interests” of the U.S. — puts DeSantis directly in line with where former president Donald Trump has been on the issue for a while now.

“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump said at his CPAC speech earlier this month. “I will get the problem solved. And I will get it solved in rapid order and it will take me no longer than one day.” He added that “I got along very well with [Russian president Vladimir] Putin.”

(Trump has also said that as part of that deal he would have allowed Russia to take over parts of Ukraine. So…)

It’s the latest example of DeSantis and Trump aligning themselves on major issues.

Opposition to critical race theory? Check.

No “woke” views in government? Check.

Deep skepticism about the transgender movement? Check.

On issue after issue, Trump and DeSantis appear very, very similar.

(Sidebar: Trump has made much of DeSantis’ past support for privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age for Medicare; DeSantis has said of late he would not “mess with” either program.)

Which raises a simple question: What, exactly, is the motivation for a Republican voters who likes Trump — polling suggests that’s the majority of the party — to walk away from him and support DeSantis?

The argument from the DeSantis folks appears to be simple: Winning.

Last month, amid an onslaught of attacks from Trump, DeSantis said this:

“The good thing is, is that the people are able to render a judgment on that whether they re-elect you or not. And I’m happy to say — you know in my case — not only did we win re-election, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has had in the history of the state of Florida. ... That verdict has been rendered by the people of the state of Florida.”

Which, ok. It is undeniably true that DeSantis won his reelection race by a wide margin while Trump narrowly lost his bid for a 2nd presidential term in 2020.

But, is that an apples to apples comparison for Republican voters? Does winning a statewide race necessarily mean that you will win a national election?

And, more importantly, is the notion of being a winner enough of a differentiator for DeSantis to strip away meaningful support from Trump?

A new poll from CNN suggests the answer to that question is “no.”

Almost 6 in 10 (59%) of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they preferred a candidate who agreed with them on major issues over one who had the best chance to beat President Joe Biden (41%) in 2024.

So, yeah.

Add it all up and I think there is at least the possibility that DeSantis is New Coke.

You’ll remember — and if not I will remind you — that in the mid 1980s Coke reformulated its immensely popular soda. It wasn’t entirely clear why a change was in order — Coke had used the same formula for almost 100 years — and whether people actually wanted something different.

(Ostensibly, the move was to co-opt Pepsi, which was making up market share and was reportedly sweeter than old Coke.)

Here’s the thing: New Coke wasn’t all that different from old Coke. It tasted slightly different, sure, but it was, essentially, the same basic stuff. (The Coke chairman said New Coke was “smoother, rounder, yet bolder—a more harmonious flavor.” Um, ok.)

People hated it. As the History Channel noted:

Within weeks of the announcement, the company was fielding 5,000 angry phone calls a day. By June, that number grew to 8,000 calls a day, a volume that forced the company to hire extra operators.

Just 79 days after New Coke launched — and old Coke was shelved — the Coca-Cola Company reversed itself, re-launching old Coke as Coca Cola Classic, which immediately began eclipsing New Coke in sales. (New Coke hung on — rebranded in 1990 as Coke II — until 2002.)

Could this be DeSantis? After all, he is offering a lot of what people liked in Trump — but in a new package — and slightly reformulated with more anti “wokeness”!

DeSantis is promising that this new formula is what people want. But, there’s ample evidence — see polls that have Trump comfortably leading DeSantis and the rest of the field — that there’s still plenty of interest in old Coke.

And, don’t forget that unlike how Coca Cola got rid of old Coke to push New Coke, Trump, the original recipe, is still very much around — and able for people to pick whenever they want.

One other way to think about it: Would you rather go see the original Beatles lineup or a really good Beatles cover band? No brainer, right? (Yes, Donald Trump is the Beatles in this metaphor. So sue me.)

Look. DeSantis still isn’t even an announced candidate in the 2024 race. Which means he still has time to find meaningful ways to differentiate himself from Trump.

But, at the moment, the two men look pretty similar. And that’s not a good thing for New Coke Ron.