To summarize, the devotion in that room to 45 was so powerful that even DeSantis’ strong performance swayed almost none of those in attendance to turn to his side.
I admit, as a political observer, the Sunshine State’s governor’s inability to attract more supporters has taken me by surprise. I am by no means endorsing him (or Trump) here, but I think it’s incontrovertible that DeSantis has delivered strong results for the conservative agenda and was one of the most effective leaders in fighting back against the Orwellian government overreach during the autocracy of the COVID era. As someone whose family was deeply (and extremely negatively) affected by the draconian, lawless clampdown of Governor Gavin Newsom’s California regime, I can tell you that was no mean feat.
But to a majority of conservatives and Republicans, DeSantis is still no Trump. To them, the man the tabloids used to refer to as The Donald was the original, the OG, the one who brought us back from the darkness which looked like it was going to descend permanently upon us with eight years of Hillary Clinton. (Back then, we didn’t know that an octogenarian train-obsessed hair-sniffer with a limited IQ would actually turn out to be far more dangerous to our republic than Hillary probably could ever have been.)
These passionate devotees don’t care about Trump’s flaws, they don’t care about his endless legal woes (in fact they see them as proof that the Deep State is out of control and needs to be neutered), and they don’t care that DeSantis has been killing it in ads, legislation, and results.
They just can’t quit Donald J. Trump.
A relative of mine who’s on Team R just isn't moved by what DeSantis does – she simply will never turn her back on Trump. It’s not that she doesn’t like Ron and his achievements—she does—it’s just that she feels an almost familial loyalty to the former president.
She is far from alone, as virtually every survey shows.
Often people get mad when I report these facts and accuse writers like me who point them out of being Trump bootlickers and sycophants, but what they miss is that I’m not celebrating or decrying the reality—I’m just bringing it to you. And the facts are indeed facts.
POLL: Trump Maintains Commanding Lead After Second Debate
This is shown in poll after poll after poll after poll. In the one cited above, Trump holds an almost unheard-of 56 percent edge, while DeSantis came in at 11 and everyone else in single digits. Find your favorite study, it will assuredly show similar results. Even if you don’t believe in the accuracy of polls, when the spread is this wide, it’s impossible to ignore.
Nothing seems to dent Trump’s armor among the GOP base, and nothing DeSantis has done or said seems to have gained him any significant progress in turning these numbers around.
Now I’m not saying that it’s a done deal, or that Donald Trump is 100 percent guaranteed to be the GOP nominee, or that it’s game over. There’s still a long way to go, and if the Democrats get their way, Trump could very well end up in prison—and that would certainly change the dynamic. Trump could have a health scare or say something so outlandish that even his most ardent supporters could balk, or a meteor could hit, or who knows what.
But as it stands now, he holds a massive lead and therefore is effectively the leader of the GOP. Many on the Republican side are thrilled by this fact—but some are not. Whichever side you’re on, the truth is the truth. One could think DeSantis would be the best conservative president the country has ever seen, but they’d be misguided if they were unable to admit that his odds are long at best at this point in the contest. I don’t like the fact that flash mobs recently attacked my local mall recently, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
People can attack the messengers all they want, but the facts remain: at this point in time, Donald Trump is in an exceptionably favorable position to capture the Republican nomination. If I told you otherwise, just to please those out there who wish it weren’t so, I’d simply be another clone of CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, and others – a journalistic fraud.