It is far too soon to say that DeSantis is done
The Road map to victory for Donald Trump: The case against Donald Trump versus the anti-Trump coalition in the New York courthouse and the early stage of his 2016 campaign
Although Trump holds onto the Republican electorate, it is tenuous. He has never won the majority of voters in a contested Republican primary. A delegate at the Republican National Committee winter meeting told me that 30 to 35 percent of Republicans were uneasy with Trump, but another group was comfortable with him as the nominee.
For other candidates, those numbers make up a road map to victory: Consolidate the majority of Republicans who would prefer a different nominee. The Tea Party conservatives who backed Ted Cruz in the Texas primary were also part of this group.
Appealing to them is a difficult task. There are different reasons for why these groups opposed Trump, but the conditions are there for an anti-Trump coalition.
The path for a candidate like Congressman Ron DeSantis of Florida or South Carolina Senator Tim Scott to win the nomination is to not cross Trump. One strategy for defeating Trump could be to embody his political message, without taking him on directly. For some Republicans, this is a welcome direction. My reporting made clear that given the criminal investigations Trump faces, some rivals have banked on him to implode on his own.
The strategy is passive, which could play into Trump’s hands. Outside the Manhattan courthouse on the day that Trump was arraigned on fraud charges related to his 2016 campaign, the conservative media provocateur Jack Posobiec said that people close to Trump’s campaign predicted that more indictments would embolden his candidacy, not imperil it. He said they believed Trump would have the opportunity to galvanize voters by painting law enforcement as politically motivated and out to stifle his candidacy.
Mr. DeSantis’s strategy so far this year may have also increased the likelihood of big swings. There are two theories of defeating the former president: Trumpism without Trump and a rejuvenated conservative alternative to Trump. The deS antis campaign can easily be interpreted as a version of Trumpism without him. If his campaign has done anything, it’s to narrow any disagreement with Mr. Trump — even to a fault. Mr. DeSantis has not made any case against the former president. Perhaps worse, he hasn’t punched back after being attacked.
He will not come back even if he mounts a comeback. His campaign decided to announce his candidacy on the micro-blogging site tonight and that leaves me without a chance to see him live on multiple networks in favor of a feature I don’t know how to use. Donald J. Trump might be different than his campaign has been so far, but it is not clear that the Republicans would defeat him.
