The pressure is on tonight for DeSantis

Of the six Republican candidates on the stage at the Reagan Library in California for tonight’s second GOP presidential debate, none is under more pressure than Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

In a sane political world (and yes, I know the definition of ‘oxymoron’), a Republican like Ron DeSantis would be nearly unstoppable. He entered 2023 on the highest of highs, having been the epicenter of the one bright spot in an otherwise disappointing midterm for Republicans last November. Even as the expected “Red Wave” failed to materialize for Republicans, Ron DeSantis triumphed.

DeSantis won his first term in 2018 by a razor-thin margin of just 33,000 votes. But on Election Night 2022, he blew former Republican and former Florida governor Charlie Crist completely off the board. In a lopsided 20 percentage point victory, DeSantis took all but five of Florida’s 67 counties, including perennial Democratic stronghold Miami-Dade. DeSantis won 65 percent of white voters, 58 percent of Hispanic voters and 13 percent of black voters. It was one of the best election nights for a Republican candidate in a very long time.

Following his Florida blowout, DeSantis remained coy about his presidential aspirations through the spring of 2023. But he finally did as expected, and on May 24 formally announced for the Republican presidential nomination.

On that day, former president Donald Trump held a 33-point polling advantage over DeSantis according to Fox News. Fast forward to September 12, that same Fox News poll puts Trump ahead of DeSantis by 47 points. Most of the polls that make up the Real Clear Politics average tell the same story.

DeSantis’s campaign has simply not caught fire on the national level.

The campaign will tell you that national polls have limited meaning in a state-by-state primary race. They will point to DeSantis’s somewhat better margins in Iowa and, until recently, in New Hampshire, the presidential primary season lead-off states.

Following the example of Ted Cruz in 2016, DeSantis has concentrated most of his campaign efforts in Iowa. Cruz defeated Donald Trump in Iowa by three percentage points in February 2016. But eight days later in New Hampshire, Trump crushed Cruz by more than 20 percentage points before going on to win 41 state primaries to Cruz’s 11.

DeSantis was in Tyler for a luncheon last Thursday and I was able to attend. What I saw was a candidate that just about any Republican could believe would easily defeat a beleaguered, befuddled and increasingly unpopular Joe Biden – and then go on to make a very good president.

Yet on that very day, polling data from New Hampshire showed DeSantis slipping into third place behind Trump and a mildly surging Nikki Haley.

All of this to say that Ron DeSantis must significantly outdo his August 23 first debate performance in tonight’s second GOP debate if he wants to contend in the 2024 primary.

KTBB will have full coverage of tonight’s debate beginning at 6:00 p.m.