Campaigns Don't Get Any Worse Than DeSantis'

There's no need to closely study Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, interviewing insiders or waiting for post-race analyses, to see what went wrong, two veteran GOP political operatives say. The answer is "everything," Curt Anderson and Alex Castellanos write in an opinion piece in Politico. Florida's governor began last year ahead of all competitors, including Donald Trump, they point out, and raised more money than anybody. The decision-making that brought DeSantis to this point, despite having those advantages, they say, earns the candidate and his staff the distinction of having run "the Worst Presidential Campaign in History."

The list of failures is long, Anderson and Castellanos say, and includes a lack of strategy. DeSantis should have been marketed as "Trump-plus, something like the former president but better," they write, instead of having him "merely trying to imitate Trump." But the biggest setback came when the campaign "introduced the product," the authors write. "The candidate did not match the hype. He was less than advertised. In person, he was a diminutive politician," the strategists say. "The campaign introduced him to the nation as a bright but socially awkward introvert, a nerd who did not enjoy people—which was a problem since voters tend to be people." The full piece can be found here. (More Ron DeSantis 2024 stories.)