DeSantis Has A Lower Favorability Than Dylan Mulvaney. Is That Why He Fired A Dozen Staffers?

It’s been less than two months on the campaign trail for Ron DeSantis, but obviously it’s been a trying time — and an unstable one. NBC News is reporting that the Florida Republican who would topple Donald Trump has fired a dozen staffers and is likely to fire a lot more. Why that is isn’t specified at this time. But a couple of things are known: 1. DeSantis never really launched and since his sputtering non-launch on Twitter, he’s been flatlining in the polls; 2. A lot of the small dollar donations he got were from people who are maxed out and can’t give again. So things are not going as swimmingly as DeSantis might have hoped. Maybe it’s bad karma for screwing with Mickey Mouse? Or just plain ineptitude? How about both?

Sources involved with the DeSantis campaign say there is an internal assessment among some that they hired too many staffers too early, and despite bringing in $20 million during its first six weeks, it was becoming clear their costs needed to be brought down.

Some in DeSantis’ political orbit are laying the early blame at the feet of campaign manager Generra Peck, who also led DeSantis’ 2022 midterm reelection bid and is in the hot seat right now.

“She should be,” one DeSantis donor said.

“They never should have brought so many people on, the burn rate was way too high,” said one Republican source familiar with the campaign’s thought process. “People warned the campaign manager but she wanted to hear none of it.”

“DeSantis stock isn’t rising,” the donor added. “Twenty percent is not what people signed up for.”

The person noted that DeSantis has a penchant for switching out staff, which means that he has no core team that has worked together before. DeSantis had three different campaign teams for each of his three runs for Congress, and notably had a huge campaign shakeup during his first run for governor in 2018.

Time to pause for a moment here. As you know, Casey DeSantis is the real campaign manager. And that would certainly explain why there is no “core team” even though DeSantis has been around the election block a few times. But he hasn’t run for national office before and that is a completely different level of game. And people who do it usually have a core team that they’ve worked with before in other campaigns, along with talent from other successful politicians’ campaigns within the same party to tap into. From what it sounds like, DeSantis has none of this. He’s flying blind and learning as he goes and so far things are reflecting that laissez-faire attitude.

DeSantis has been unable to make up ground against Trump after nearly two months as an official candidate. That stagnation is starting to frustrate some supporters, who want a shakeup of the campaign, which is led day-to-day by Peck and Ryan Tyson, a longtime Republican Florida pollster.

“Yeah, there are people grumbling about it, no doubt,” one DeSantis donor said. “There is an overall sense, including with me, that he just has not ignited the way we thought he would.”

The DeSantis team was never in reality about how he would “ignite.” The only people really expecting some meteoric movement were Ron and Casey and whoever happened to believe them. Rank and file Americans never had the attitude, “Oh, boy, look. Ron DeSantis is running. Now we’re going to see some action.”

For some supporters, though, there are now three keys to DeSantis remaining viable: Iowa, Iowa, Iowa.

 “They need to treat it like it’s all that matters right now,” the DeSantis donor said. “If Trump wins it it is over. It means he needs to be there a lot. He needs to do all the retail politics he can.”

The person said DeSantis’ wife, Casey, is a great asset when doing the sort of retail politicking needed to win Iowa, but DeSantis himself needs to improve.

“He needs to find that gear,” the person said. “He needs to find it fast.”

Yes, and he’s not going to find it blaming the “corporate media” and the president of Mexico for his troubles. Whut? Oh yes, he’s ticked off at President Lopez Obrador. Our neighbor to the south is partly responsible for Ron’s troubles, he wants you to know. CNN:

DeSantis also comes across as cold, flat and bordering on whiny. For example, asked about his lackluster polling last week on Fox News, his low-key answer was to blame the “corporate media” and — oddly — the president of Mexico. “I think if you look at the people like the corporate media, who are they going after, who do they not want to be the nominee? They are going after me,” he said, repeating pretty much the same line again Sunday on that network.

DeSantis added, “Who’s the president of Mexico attacking because he knows we’ll be strong on the border and hold him accountable in the cartels? He’s going after me.” (President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has urged Latino voters not to support DeSantis, given his state’s tough immigration policies.)

Does either point hold up to scrutiny? Hasn’t the media been critical of Trump, too, especially after the January 6, 2021 insurrection? And wouldn’t the Mexican leader’s criticism likely help DeSantis with GOP voters, given their views on immigration?

Let me add this caveat about DeSantis’ polling challenges, as others have: It’s still early in the 2024 race for the GOP nomination. At this point in the 2016 race, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was leading among Republicans in many surveys. And in the 2008 race for the Democratic nomination, at this point, many pundits were saying Hillary Clinton was inevitable, yet Barack Obama eventually won the nomination — and the presidency.

To that point, DeSantis said last week, “I’m running to win in January and February. I’m not running to juice polling now.”

But as each day passes and he doesn’t seem to be changing tactics, DeSantis threatens to become just another good-on-paper candidate who may not have what it takes on the national stage.

And finally, Newsweek chimes in with the revelation that

Dylan Mulvaney, the transgender social media star whose promotion of Bud Light led to a boycott of the beer, is more popular than Florida governor and 2024 hopeful Ron DeSantis, polling suggests.

The first nationwide poll on Mulvaney, conducted by the DailyMail.com and TIPP Poll, shows that 50 percent of the American public who know who Mulvaney is hold a “very favorable” view of her (23 percent) or a “somewhat” favorable view (27 percent). Forty-two percent viewed her unfavorably, which would give her a net favorability score of plus 8. […]

According to FiveThirtyEight’s national poll tracker, DeSantis currently has an average favorable rating of 35.5 percent, with an unfavorable rating of 45.9 percent, which would give him a net favorability score of minus 10.4.

Plus 8 to minus 10.4. It’s these unfavorability ratings which are tanking DeSantis. They’re understandable in Donald Trump’s case. The man has been a walking disaster for lo these past seven years. But DeSantis is viewed as unfavorably as Trump, if not more so, in a much shorter span of time and for a lot fewer reasons. It does not bode well for a long haul. A presidential run isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon and DeSantis has already pulled several muscles and collapsed in the first couple of miles.

Maybe he’ll rally. But he better do it soon. On that point, all are agreed, friends and foes alike. DeSantis is running out of time.