In any crowded Republican primary, candidates will inevitably look for ways to stand out in the crowd, differentiating themselves from their intraparty rivals. With this in mind, there’s some good news for Gov. Ron DeSantis: By targeting corporations as part of his culture war crusade, he’s done something no one else in the GOP presidential field has done.
The bad news for the Florida Republican is that most of his party’s voters aren’t on board with his efforts. Consider the results of the first national New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign:
Mr. DeSantis has made taking on “woke” institutions a centerpiece of his political identity. But when given a choice between a hypothetical candidate who prioritized “defeating radical woke ideology” or one who was focused on “law and order in our streets and at the border,” only 24 percent said they would be more likely to support the candidate focused on fighting “woke” issues.
Indeed, the closer one looks at the data, the more it helps explain why the governor’s campaign has struggled. The Times/Siena poll asked Republican respondents whether they’re looking for a candidate who “promises to fight corporations that promote ‘woke’ left ideology” or a candidate who “says that the government should stay out of deciding what corporations can support.”
A 52% majority supported the latter — and of the 38% who said they want the former, most of them are backing Trump, not DeSantis.
In other words, the Florida governor has picked ugly and unnecessary fights with the likes of Disney and Bud Light, breaking with the party’s free market orthodoxy, and offering the GOP electorate something unique. But it’s failing to fuel his White House bid because this simply isn’t what most Republicans are looking for.
Making matters a bit worse, DeSantis is still struggling to defend his own work. In an interview last week, he insisted he felt justified in targeting Disney, for example, because he believes the corporate giant was guilty of “indulging in social activism.” (He was referring to Disney releasing an inconsequential press statement that was critical of his so-called Stop WOKE Act.)
When host Megyn Kelly asked why Disney couldn’t disagree with him without being punished, DeSantis denied that he had punished the company — despite what actually happened. In the same interview, the Florida governor denied having used government to punish people for taking positions he disagrees with, explaining that he went after Bud Light’s parent company because its stock price went down and Anheuser-Busch is part of Florida’s pension fund. Of course, this fails to note that (a) the stock price went down thanks in part to a boycott DeSantis helped promote; (b) the stock price has started to recover; (c) the state pension fund’s investment in Anheuser-Busch is very small; and (d) Bud Light really didn’t do anything to warrant such a hysterical far-right backlash. Maybe it’s not too late for DeSantis to think of some other way to differentiate himself?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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