Things just went from “difficult” to “dire” in the case of Ron DeSantis‘ campaign to be the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
The Florida governor, who officially threw his hat in the presidential ring just a couple months ago, has in the past week cut around a dozen campaign staffers from the payroll, reported that it’s spent a staggering $8 million of its initial $20 million funds in just the first 6 weeks of the campaign, and fielded catastrophes coming out of home state Florida including the insurance policies scandal, Disney feud, and possible brewing malaria epidemic. It all adds up to one terrible, no good, very bad week for the presidential hopeful—and according to polling numbers, it may soon get even worse.
Florida Serves Up Several Problems For Presidential Hopeful DeSantis: Insurance, Epidemics, And Disney
Though he's been on the campaign trail since May, Ron DeSantis has one responsibility that should surpass any other: that to his state's constituents. As the active governor of Florida, DeSantis needs to keep one eye on the home state even while the other is on the big prize of the 2024 presidency. Unfortunately, it seems that Florida is taking up quite a lot of bandwidth considering recent news.
A potential economic crisis is brewing relating to insurance in the Sunshine State, with multiple major insurance companies (Farmers Insurance being the most recent) pulling out of the state in only the past year, citing the risk posed by hurricane. The latest move by Farmers will reportedly affect 100,000 policies, not to mention those that have already been affected by other companies discontinuing home, auto, and umbrella policies in Florida.
The governor is also facing mounting pressure amid a growing number of malaria cases in Florida, with 2 more cases of the mosquito-borne disease being detected in Sarasota County between June 25 and July 1. That brings the total cases to 6 in Florida this year, and is the first time in over 20 years that malaria has been locally acquired in the United States, and not via international travel. Considering the fact that 2 public health roles relating to the spread of disease have been left vacant for months, it's not a good look for the governor, especially in the wake of recent epidemic concerns.
This is to say nothing of the feud between DeSantis and Disney, which has cast a negative shadow over media coverage of the governor's campaign. The tense back-and-forth began when the House of Mouse spoke out against DeSantis' controversial so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill—and the gov responded by stripping the media juggernaut of its social privileges and previously-protected tax breaks. It seems Mickey has had the last laugh, however: Disney announced on Tuesday it is green-lighting the Disneyland Forward program in Anaheim, California, which will inject an estimated $250 million-plus into the local economy. An economy that happens to be in a pretty solidly blue Democrat-led state. Disney also announced it will be pulling an originally proposed plan to build a $1 billion corporate campus in central Florida that would have created an estimated 2,000 jobs in the state.
Ron DeSantis Forced To Scale Back Campaign Amid Financial Concerns; Trails Far Behind Trump In Polls
Florida's crises may not be at the top of Ron DeSantis' worry list, however: the Republican hopeful has struggled to gain traction as of late in his campaign, and after raising a strong $20 million-plus as of June 30, the campaign has reported that it has somehow blown through $8 million of that donation pile in just the last 6 weeks. Much of that spending was on payroll, with approximately 90 staffers listed on their campaign finance reports. That number will be smaller at the time of the next filing, however—around a dozen staffers were let go this week to help tighten the campaign's financial belt.
To add insult to injury, DeSantis is currently polling 30 points behind Donald Trump with Republican voters considering who they'll vote for as presidential nominee. National polls courtesy of FiveThirtyEight place Donald Trump well ahead the rest of the Republican pack with over 50% of the Republican candidate vote—DeSantis was initially scoring in the high 30s and even low 40s earlier this year, but has trailed down to 20% this month. The next-highest-polling Republican candidate, Mike Pence, is only polling at a meager 10 or so percent at the moment.
However, the DeSantis campaign has stayed resolute that, though they may be down, they are not out: The media has tried to "create a narrative that somehow the race is over," the Florida governor said recently in an interview with Fox Business. "This is going to be a state-by-state contest. We've worked really hard to build the type of organization in places like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that you need to actually be able to win these early [nominating] contests. And we're gonna continue doing that. We got a lot of work, but we've had a very, very favorable response," DeSantis added.
