Former President Donald Trump ramped up attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week following recent tumult in the camp of his main Republican rival, including the abrupt Dec. 16 departure of the chief strategist at the “Never Back Down” Super PAC.
The increasing rancor between the former GOP allies comes as the pivotal first ballot in the 2024 presidential race in Iowa is less than a month away, with a new poll from CBS News showing Trump with a commanding lead over DeSantis and the rest of the Republican field.
“The Ron DeSanctimonious ‘team’ of misfits and grifters has largely quit his campaign to go on to greener pastures,” Trump wrote Tuesday on his platform Truth Social, echoing a term that he has used to needle DeSantis throughout the campaign.
In the post, Trump highlighted Saturday’s sudden resignation of Jeff Roe, who laid the groundwork for the DeSantis campaign in Iowa throughout the year.
The shakeup was foreboding as DeSantis trailed Trump by 36 percentage points in Iowa, even after the Florida governor toured all 99 counties across the state — setting up a critical first showdown with Trump just three weeks after Christmas, with DeSantis seemingly needing a miracle to win.
“It has been a terrible experience for them as they have watched their candidate fall violently from the sky like a wounded bird,” Trump continued in the post, adding that “Jeff Roe, his ‘chief strategist’ and head of his PAC, ‘Always Back Down,’ after having done major surgery on Ron’s wallet, couldn’t get out of town fast enough.”
Roe said he made the decision to quit the PAC after the group’s new chairman, Scott Wagner, made “false” statements about employees who were fired when he took the helm two weeks earlier.
Previously, Roe served as campaign manager for Sen. Ted Cruz’s failed bid for president in 2016, which gave Trump another opening to make further criticism.
“Now Jeff can spend full time in Texas working with Ted Cruz, formerly known as Lyin’ Ted, who is working hard to get back the magic they had together in 2016!”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, DeSantis endorsed Trump for president and became one of Trump’s most vocal defenders in Congress during special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2017 investigation into Russian election interference.
A year later, in 2018, Trump endorsed the congressman in the race for Florida governor as part of a strategic arrangement with DeSantis to cast him as an ideal candidate before he officially announced his run.
Trump came through for DeSantis, tweeting in December 2017, “Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER!”
Later, in his victory speech, DeSantis thanked the president for “standing by me when it wasn’t necessarily the smart thing to do,” adding, “I think we’ll have a great partnership.”
After Trump left the White House in early 2021, he moved back to Florida, where he praised DeSantis’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Trump’s influence behind the scenes notably added pressure on the governor.
Before the 2020 general election, Trump joked that he would “fire” DeSantis if he lost the Florida race before his own defeat to Joe Biden in the presidential race.
In early 2021, Trump floated the idea of DeSantis coming on board as his running mate in 2024, but DeSantis had bigger plans as his national profile began to rise among conservatives due to his tough policies that often defied Washington.
By the 2022 midterm election, Trump had begun calling DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimonious,” and the attacks have intensified since, with DeSantis taking a toned-down approach toward Trump to avoid upsetting the former president’s base.
Meanwhile, for much of the 2024 campaign, DeSantis has focused on winning big in Iowa while securing endorsements from the state’s senior senator, Charles Grassley, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, and a host of state and local representatives.
However, his narrow focus in the state could spell trouble in other early primaries like New Hampshire, where DeSantis is trailing former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley before the Jan. 23 vote.
There is also a considerable chance that Haley could topple DeSantis in Iowa, while a defeat in New Hampshire would potentially doom the DeSantis campaign out the gate.
Another poll from Progress Florida and Florida Watch revealed growing dissatisfaction among state residents with DeSantis’ strict policies and his lack of focus in the state, with about half of voters expressing disapproval of his performance as governor.
The low approval ratings are an astounding turnaround from a year ago, when DeSantis was reelected by nearly 20 percentage points, with positive approval ratings continuing until last summer when the governor lost favor with voters on key issues such as the economy, affordable housing, healthcare, and public safety.
“As Gov. Ron DeSantis has traveled the country speaking to voters in other states, his constituents in Florida are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the job he is doing to address the issues impacting their daily lives here at home,” Florida Watch Executive Director Josh Weierbach said, according to Florida Politics. “Ahead of this year’s Legislative Session, it certainly appears that working families and seniors in Florida are dissatisfied with the perceived lack of leadership being provided by the Governor during his campaign for President.”
Nearly a year into his second term as Florida governor, DeSantis is facing a parallel political battle with his own constituents while running for president, with several controversial measures he supports sailing toward a vote during the 2024 state legislative session that is set to begin Jan. 9.
