The Wall Street Journal reports today:
DeSantis Campaign Stalls as He Tries to Court Trump’s GOP Fans and Foes Alike
Six weeks after launching his campaign, DeSantis has stalled.
His support in national polls has stayed flat, despite increased travel and advertising and widespread expectations that he would be a formidable challenger to Trump. Signs also have emerged that he is struggling to gain traction in the states that will hold the first nomination balloting.
But cast your mind back to this same point in the 2007-2008 election cycle. The McCain campaign was stalled out. He was out of money. He was laying off senior staff. The New York Times reported on July 11, 2007:
McCain Campaign Drops Top Aides; New Doubts Rise
. . . critical political miscalculations and management shortfalls that have left Mr. McCain with less than $2 million in the bank and slipping in polls in critical states like Iowa and New Hampshire. . .
Mr. McCain’s friends described the senator, who returned last Friday from another trip to Iraq, as agitated and humiliated at finding himself the central figure in a political drama that has seen him fall from Republican Party front-runner to a candidate forced to insist Tuesday that he was not dropping out.
We know how that cycle turned out. The point is: it is still early. Pay no attention to the media.
JOHN adds: Amen. Not a single vote has yet been cast, and primary polls (unlike general elections polls) are notoriously volatile. I’m old enough to remember when Ed Muskie had the Democratic nomination all but sewn up. Then he had what some perceived as a bad moment in New Hampshire, and just like that, he was finished. Remember, too, Howard Dean. He was easily the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2004, and had all the momentum. Then he got excited and came out with “the scream,” which in hindsight was no big deal. But it was enough to cause Democratic primary voters to panic and flee to John Kerry, a horrible candidate.
It is also rather amusing to see some Republicans reposing so much trust in the polls. If there is anything we have learned in the last eight years, it is not to take polls to the bank. Especially primary polls. And we should be highly suspicious of the motives of those (mostly Democrats) who want to award the GOP nomination to Trump by acclamation.
The reality is that no one has any idea how this year’s race will turn out for either party.
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