The logic of Ron DeSantis' candidacy is collapsing

He's become a one-state candidate.

(Ron DeSantis)

This, from NBC News, is important:

Never Back Down, the super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, has ceased its door-knocking operations in Nevada, home to a key early nominating contest, and California, a delegate-rich Super Tuesday state, officials confirmed Wednesday.

They added that in recent weeks, the group also ended its field operations in North Carolina and Texas, two additional states that vote on Super Tuesday in March.

Which is a big change from this — in early May:

The super PAC promoting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to have dozens of staff in place in the first 18 states on the Republican presidential primary calendar in the coming weeks, a move indicating that his expected 2024 announcement is drawing closer…

…“We are ahead of the game in expanding our operations outside of the first four primary states as the energy behind Governor Ron DeSantis to run for President and defeat Joe Biden in 2024 continues to grow,” [DeSantis super PAC spokeswoman Erin] Perrine said in a statement.

And this from July (which, not for nothing was a month ago):

As the Republican presidential primary intensifies this summer, most White House hopefuls are devoting their time to events in Iowa and New Hampshire, the states that kick off the nomination process early next year. Not Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump…

…Only Trump and DeSantis, who have raised tens of millions of dollars to support their campaigns, have the resources to work in any meaningful way beyond the early states. And GOP leaders beyond Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina say it's a smart strategy.

So, yeah.

Let’s remember that the entire theory of the DeSantis case as recently as 3 months ago was that he was the only candidate with the polling strength and fundraising muscle to truly compete with Donald Trump all the way through the nominating calendar

It was part and parcel of the broader argument DeSantis was making that the race was, in essence, a two-person contest between he and Trump. Every one else was running narrow campaigns based on performing well in a state (Tim Scott in Iowa, Chris Christie in New Hampshire) and hoping that they could catapult into contention.

That strategy appears to no longer be operative for DeSantis — a fact which Perrine acknowledged in an interview with NBC.

“We want to reinvest in the first three,” she said, referring to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. “We see real opportunities in the first three. The first three are going to set the conditions for the March states.”

Big change! And, read between the lines and what you get is this: DeSantis is now a single-state candidate. If he doesn’t do well — maybe even win — in Iowa, he is likely going to be done in the race.

Which is, honestly, a reflection of reality. DeSantis has, for some time, been running closer to the likes of Tim Scott, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy than he has Trump.

His repeated re-starts of his campaign have raised questions among the donor class — and activists — whether he really is the one, serious Trump alternative.

This pullback by the DeSantis super PAC will only affirm that his status in the race has now changed.

He no longer can make the case that he has multiple paths to the nomination and/or that he can weather a poor showing (or showings) in early states. Or that he alone can take the fight to Trump well into March and beyond.

Which doesn’t make him irrelevant in the race! Multiple polls out of Iowa suggest that the race there is closer than it is nationally. A Des Moines Register poll conducted earlier this month showed DeSantis in 2nd place and 23 points behind Trump — not ideal but far smaller than the 40+ point lead the president holds nationally.

And, that same poll had this bit of good news for DeSantis — via the Des Moines Register:

Sixty-three percent of poll respondents said Trump was their first or second choice, or that they were actively considering him. That “footprint” is only slightly larger than the 61% who say the same for DeSantis.

So, all hope is not lost! (Although, as I have written before, I am very skeptical that Iowa matters in the way it once did in the GOP primary.)

But, the reality is that this is a reduced vision of what DeSantis’ campaign was supposed to be. Gone is the behemoth that could take on the Trump machine. In its place is a much more narrow effort — designed to throw a rock at the Goliath in the race.

Speaking of that Goliath: DeSantis’ scaling back is very good news for the former president. Now, only Trump can realistically boast of a country-wide primary campaign in which he has organizations in all of the states that will vote.

It also raises the chances that Trump effectively clinches the nomination on(or shortly after) Super Tuesday (March 5) — because he will be the only one with operations in all of the states that vote that day. Even if DeSantis (or someone else) catches fire, they will need to build those sorts of organizations on the fly — which is never easy.

Advantage Trump.