The coming Ron-aissance?

Don't count out the Florida governor just yet.

(Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis)

I signed up a while back for a Google alert for the keywords “Ron DeSantis 2024.”¹

This morning, these are the headlines that alert flagged for me:

• Kari Lake Doubts DeSantis' 2024 Chances: 'He Needs to Wait'

• How bad is it for Ron DeSantis? He’s polling at RFK Jr.’s level

• Ron DeSantis's possible 2024 bid shapes up as political headaches mount

But, amid that panoply of terrible headlines was also a link to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by former Clintons pollster Mark Penn with this headline: “Don’t Count Ron DeSantis Out.”

The argument put forward by Penn is, essentially, a) it’s very early still and b) the process often rewards underdogs against established challengers.

Writes Penn:

Can Ron DeSantis beat Donald Trump? In the game of presidential politics, well-known front-runners often falter and up-and-comers often win—Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton, and Jimmy Carter came from nowhere to beat establishment figures such as Rep. Mo Udall and Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson. When Mr. Trump was the challenger, he polished off Jeb Bush, the Florida governor who once led the pack.

Penn believes DeSantis’ path to relevance is through an abandonment of the anti-woke rhetoric that has gotten him this far — and an “adoption of character, competence and common sense.”

That won’t be happening. DeSantis quite clearly believes that the anti-woke policy platform is his ticket to the nomination.

But, Penn raises — at least to me — a very interesting point: Are circumstances conspiring to give us a “DeSantis is on the comeback trail” storyline some time in the not-too-distant future?

I’d argue — based on how these nomination fights tend to play out — that we just might be.

Start here: DeSantis, likely some time later this month or early next month, will officially enter the presidential race.²

That will be a moment of largely positive press for DeSantis. His announcement speech will get national coverage. His fundraising — one of his strengths — should get a boost from an official candidacy. His electoral — and policy — successes in Florida will get revisited.

The announcement should — if DeSantis’ team handles it right — look a lot like this ad released recently by his super PAC.

DeSantis and his team have spent the last few months playing nothing but defense. Donald Trump has relentlessly attacked him — from “Meatball Ron” to his past support for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. He’s even faced some incoming of late from former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Because DeSantis is not an official candidate — and remains at least somewhat focused on the Florida legislative session — his response to those attacks has been, well, half assed.

His formal announcement will be a chance for him to play actual offense. And once he’s in the race, presumably his rapid response to attacks aimed in his direction will be quicker and better.

Then there’s this: Voters tend to not like coronations for presidential nominations.

In 2016, for example, Hillary Clinton had a 60+ point lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the early stages of the race. The race should not have been close. The establishment — from elected officials to donors to key activists — were all lined up early and often for Clinton.

And yet, voters had a different idea. Sanders easily won the New Hampshire primary and went on to give Clinton a far more competitive race than anyone thought he could.

I think of presidential primaries like that old basketball game “Double Dribble” for Nintendo.

If you were playing the computer, you might be up 35 points in the 3rd quarter. But, inevitably, all of your shots would start to miss. And the computer would start draining 3 after 3. Every call would go against you. And by the middle of the 4th quarter, your lead would be, somehow, down to 2 points.

Every. Damn. Time.

Voters in presidential primaries want to see a real race. They want to feel as though the person who winds up as the nominee has earned it, that it hasn’t been handed to them.

And the current reality of the Republican race is that while DeSantis has clearly stumbled, no one running behind him has picked up the pace in any meaningful way.

Trump’s lead has widened but DeSantis is clearly the most credible alternative to him. Still.

In short: DeSantis is at his low ebb right now — beset by months of negative press attention and his own stumbles, particularly in his ongoing fight with Disney.

But, the things that fueled his initial rise — his successes in Florida, his war on wokeness and the desire within some in the party for an alternative to Trump — remain in place.

Those positives plus the fact that people love a race are all elements in what could be a DeSantis comeback heading into the summer.

There is, of course, an alternative path that DeSantis’ candidacy could take. Call it the “Scott Walker phenomenon.”

In 2015, Walker, the governor of Wisconsin was all the rage. He had beaten back a recall effort by Democrats! He was a successful conservative in a swing, Midwestern State! He appealed to blue-collar voters who had abandoned the GOP in droves!

At this time in 2015, Walker was seen, along with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as the co-frontrunners for the nomination.

Then questions began to be raised that will sound familiar to DeSantis: Did Walker have the right personality to be president? Was his success in Wisconsin replicable to the national stage? Did he have, well, “it”?

Walker began to fall in polls — and just never stopped. Look closely at this chart: He’s the orange line that just keeps going down and down and down.

Walker was out of the race by September 2015 — months before a single vote had been cast.

In dropping out, Walker urged other conservative candidates to consider doing the same — as a means to keeping Trump from the nomination. “This is fundamentally important to the future of our party, and, more important, the future of the country,” he said at the time.

Which could be DeSantis’ fate. Like Walker, he has considerable expectations in the race — expectations that could become anchors around him if he can’t change the narrative around his candidacy.

It’s possible that there is no turnaround, no bounce back — just a steady decline until he leaves the race with more a whimper than a bang. And he becomes an asterisk in the 2024 race — a glimpse into what might have been.

It feels to me that DeSantis is teetering between comeback and ignominy at the moment. And that the next two months will determine where he lands.

1. I did this for all the major 2024 candidates. It’s super useful!

2. Worth noting: I have made the case for why skipping the race might be the smarter strategic move for DeSantis but alas…