Ron DeSantis Blew His Big Chance

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis delivered a solid, if unremarkable, performance during the first 2024 GOP primary debate at a time when he desperately needed a major boost for his presidential campaign, an expert has told Newsweek.

On Wednesday night, DeSantis, a normally firebrand figure, had a chance to revitalize his floundering campaign in the first live GOP primary debate, which took place without Trump after the former president announced he did not see the need to attend because of his overwhelming lead in the polls.

DeSantis' presidential campaign has fallen foul of a series of controversies and self-inflicted errors, as well as a failure to make any sort of dent in Trump's huge lead in the polls, even as the former president is hit with dozens of criminal charges.

For months, DeSantis was considered the biggest rival to Donald Trump for the Republican's next presidential nominee, with members of the GOP and conservative media backing him to become the de-facto leader of the party heading into 2024.

Instead, DeSantis allowed political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy to take center stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Ramaswamy, who has overtaken DeSantis as the second-placed candidate in some recent GOP primary polls, delivered the most talked-about performance of all the eight candidates, with his enthusiasm and outsider status giving his campaign momentum that DeSantis has consistently failed to muster.

Crucially, the other 2024 hopefuls during the debate appeared to consider Ramaswamy their biggest rival and targeted him instead of DeSantis.

As a result, DeSantis was not part of some of the more fiery moments on stage on Wednesday night. His lack of stand-out moments also made the Florida governor appear like another also-ran candidate, instead of one who at one time was tipped as a potential future president, an expert told Newsweek.

"DeSantis did not engage in the tussles between the other candidates," Joshua Scacco, associate professor and associate chair of the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida, told Newsweek.

"This decision is related to his reticence to engage in a format where message control can be lost. However, debates—by definition—highlight the clash of ideas and positions. When he did not engage with the other candidates, he was overshadowed.

"A presidential campaign will be full of clashes and it will be tough to attain the skills now as he actively competes for the office. The result is that he remained middle of the pack during the debate without a breakout moment when a standout performance was needed," Scacco added.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence and ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie each took turns to criticize the Ramaswamy for everything from his lack of foreign policies to his way of delivering pre-prepared lines.

Newsweek has contacted DeSantis' office for comment via email.

Others had harsher words for DeSantis' performance. MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow said she thought the Florida governor was "absolutely terrible" during the debate, and that she was "shocked how bad Ron DeSantis is at playing [the] politician."

In an opinion piece for USA Today, columnist Rex Huppke said DeSantis "vanished" for large stretches of the debate and was "upstaged" by Ramaswamy.

"And when the Florida governor did pipe up, it was the same stump-speech pablum he has been spouting for months as his popularity among GOP voters has waned," Huppke added.

Jason Miller, senior adviser on Trump's campaign team, described the debate as "the death" of DeSantis' campaign as Ramaswamy is now the second placed candidate in the primary.

"It didn't do good enough for him [DeSantis] to try tread water, he had to have a breakout moment and Ramaswamy completely outshowed him," Miller told MSNBC.

"I knew President Trump wasn't going to be there tonight. I didn't know Ron DeSantis was going to skip the debate as well."

Others were more kind to the Florida governor. Tom Preston, a professor of communication at the University of North Georgia, told Newsweek that DeSantis was able to refer to his experience in Florida "well enough to establish a vision regarding his issues on COVID, the economy, approaches to education, and other social issues" on the debate stage.

The New York Post's Isaac Schorr declared that DeSantis was the winner of the debate on Wednesday night in an editorial for the paper.

"With his performance, DeSantis cemented himself as the man best suited to unseat Trump as the undisputed champion of Republican politics," Schorr wrote. "While so many of his colleagues onstage replied to questions with a decided lack of purpose, DeSantis spoke both fluently and passionately."

The question remains as to whether DeSantis, or Ramaswamy, can build and improve their polls by the time the second primary debate comes on September 27 in California.

According to FiveThirtyEight's national average poll tracker, Trump leads the Republican pack on 52.1 percent, with DeSantis a distant second on 15.2 and Ramaswamy third on 9.7 percent.