Facing troublesome polling numbers and fundraising difficulties, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has come up with a new strategy to save his 2024 presidential campaign.
In a rare move, DeSantis, who has largely avoided talking to the mainstream media, sat down with one of CNN's toughest interviewers, Jake Tapper, on Tuesday.
The decision to emerge out of his press blackout comes amid polls that still show him trailing well behind Donald Trump, as well as news of a campaign shake-up over the weekend. Multiple news outlets reported that dozens of staffers were fired after internal assessments suggested the campaign hired too many people. Despite pulling in $20 million in just six weeks, DeSantis' campaign spent 40 percent of what it raised in fundraising this quarter.
Tuesday's CNN interview is a switch from DeSantis' typical approach of staying close to local and conservative outlets. The decision has been seen as a "forward-facing" strategy that could help the governor counter criticisms that he's avoiding tough questions by staying away from the mainstream media.
During the CNN interview, Tapper asked DeSantis about his new military plan seeking to "rip the woke" out of the armed forces, his flip-flopping position on the Ukraine war and the six-week abortion ban he signed into law in Florida.
The shift in media strategy is especially critical during his campaign's initial stages because DeSantis has yet to effectively connect with early primary state voters, Republican strategist Matt Klink told Newsweek.
But interviews with a network like CNN could give the governor an opportunity to demonstrate how well he can "joust with journalists" and show conservative voters how he fares when confronted with liberal opinions, Klink said.
On Tuesday, Tapper asked how popular DeSantis' anti-transgender positions would be, with more than a million transgender adults living in the U.S.
"I would respect everybody, but what I wouldn't do is turn society upside down to be able to accommodate, which is a very, very small percentage of the population," DeSantis answered.
According to Klink, "DeSantis is quick-witted and isn't afraid to confront what he sees as wokism or politically correct rhetoric from the mainstream media."
DeSantis' new campaigning approach not only allows voters to see how well he will do on the debate stage. It also helps him break away from Trump, a differentiation that polls suggest DeSantis has been unable to accomplish. Although his announcement of an official campaign for the White House was the most highly anticipated launch in the GOP field, it did little to give him a significant boost over his No. 1 Republican rival, suggesting that many GOP primary voters are still with Trump.
A New Hampshire primary poll released Tuesday found that 37 percent of likely Republican primary voters in the state would vote for Trump, while 23 percent planned to back DeSantis. Recently, the governor has blamed his poor showing on the mainstream media, saying that the press "does not want me to be the nominee."
"[DeSantis' CNN] interview does suggest a change of something, perhaps an acknowledgment that his strategy of imitating a more provocative and hateful version of Trump wasn't converting Trump voters in the right-wing media bubble," political consultant Jay Townsend told Newsweek.
Klink agrees, saying it is important for DeSantis to "draw much sharper contrasts" with Trump. He also predicted that the governor will keep going with a media blitz at a number of TV networks that could help "breathe life into his campaign" before the first GOP debate, in late August.
Both strategists said that while the CNN interview is a start, DeSantis' campaign needs to "retool" its message.
Townsend said that without pivoting away from "telling every American how they are supposed to think, act and live their lives," DeSantis' latest media strategy will likely fall flat and do little to help jump-start his campaign.
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July 19, 2023 at 04:00AM
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Ron DeSantis Shifts Strategy Amid Disappointing Polls - Newsweek
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