MILWAUKEE — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, once clearly shown by polls to be the top Republican alternative to former President Donald Trump in 2024, left the GOP debate stage here Wednesday night without a scratch on him.
That’s mainly because his rivals barely swiped at him — a somewhat surprising development that observers were quick to cite as evidence of his diminished standing in the race.
“It speaks volumes that just months after being the co-front-runner of this race, Ron DeSantis has fallen so far that none of his seven opponents onstage felt the need to attack him but instead went after a first-time upstart,” said GOP strategist Matt Mowers, who attended the debate.
A longtime DeSantis bundler said that coming into the debate, “major donors” were watching to see how he performed.
“I think we will continue to kick the can,” the bundler said afterward.
DeSantis still regularly polls in second place behind Trump, but it’s a distant second. These days he’s much closer to mid-tier candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old businessman from Ohio whom most GOP voters knew little to nothing about at the beginning of the year.
And it was Ramaswamy, not DeSantis, who found himself the night’s biggest target, taking the arrows normally reserved for the front-runner — or, in this case, the biggest target onstage, with Trump having decided to skip the debate. The two-hour showdown was punctuated by one-on-one fights between Ramaswamy and former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
DeSantis made few, if any, obvious mistakes Wednesday. But even at center stage — next to Ramaswamy, because of their respective poll numbers — he was often on the sidelines of the conversation.
“While other candidates attacked each other, Gov. DeSantis stayed focused on the American people and fighting for their future with a clear vision to fix our economy, secure the border, empower parents, back law enforcement and stand up to the leftist elite and the D.C. establishment,” DeSantis campaign manager James Uthmeier said in a statement.
Ramaswamy attempted an early attack on DeSantis, criticizing him as a “super PAC puppet,” but DeSantis never responded, and the debate quickly moved on to other topics.
“Vivek tried, and the rest made him pay for it,” said a GOP operative supporting DeSantis’ campaign.
Other theories about the lack of attention on DeSantis flooded in from Republicans who requested anonymity to share candid thoughts.
“’Cause they read all your ‘DeSantis falling’ stories and everyone’s internal polling shows Vivek rising,” a DeSantis ally said.
“Because he’s not a viable threat,” a GOP strategist supporting another candidate suggested.
“Because people aren’t annoyed by him like they are Vivek,” an adviser to a rival campaign said.
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