The California governor has been trying to get his Florida Republican counterpart to engage. On Wednesday, he got it.
Isn’t that the most significant part of trump’s personality, too? Trump just also has the indictments and history of losing.
Personally, my parents are lifetime Republicans and are looking to vote for anyone that’s not Trump, because they see him as a distraction that is hard to portray as “better than the libs,” especially since they are nominally Christian.
So I think there’s a decent chance of DeSantis pulling at least a 5-10% of conservatives away from Trump.
DeSantis stealing Trump votes requires him to run as an independent. If he loses the primary and doesn’t go independent, all those votes just go back to Trump. I haven’t heard anything about an independent run from him, but I might have just missed something.
I don’t know if DeSantis would run as an independent, but I do know that my parents would vote for him if he did, especially since they live in CA where they’re convinced their views in presidential elections don’t make a bit of difference. I absolutely guarantee that Trump would run as an independent if he doesn’t get the nomination, since admitting defeat gracefully is not something he is able to do.
Plus, we just need more people thinking DeSantis has a chance before the primaries and the situation for the RNC gets even more muddled
Edit: plus, Republicans getting upset or ambivalent about the nominee is a sure way to depress voter turnout, so the more infighting, the better for Democrats, even if DeSantis doesn’t run as an independent
