A trio of polls has Trump sitting comfortably in first place. The highest one has him at 58%, about four points below where Biden is in his primary, while DeSantis has been sitting between 16-21% in the three polls.
The gap is widening, and now DeSantis has refocused his fire. He’s going after Nikki Haley, who is currently battling with Mike Pence and now even Vivek Ramaswamy for the silver spot.
She may be responsible for the opening salvo as she called DeSantis’s efforts against Disney “a targeted campaign of government retaliation.”
Never Back Down is the pro DeSantis Political Action Committee. While they aren’t supposed to coordinate directly with the candidate, usually a candidate’s staffer will sign off on a general plan, or even create one.
The PAC is now out with an online ad about Haley saying her whole run is just her “trying really hard to audition to be Trump’s runningmate”. An interesting attack considering DeSantis himself has been too scared to really swipe hard at Trump.
And the PAC’s Twitter page even threw out some Nikki Haley nicknames and polled their supporters:
ok, ok, let's vote on it! #MickeyHaley or #NikkiMouse?
— Never Back Down (@NvrBackDown24) April 27, 2023
DeSantis is probably doing this for two reasons. He is closer to Haley in the polls than he is to Trump, making it priority that she be dispatched with first. However, Mike Pence has consistently polled about four to five points better than Haley, so it would seem odd that DeSantis hasn’t swiped at Pence. But Haley gave the Florida governor an excuse to go on the offensive. He wants to look strategic and strong, with good, landed attacks, but he’s still too afraid to piss off Trump’s base. So he punches down.
Expect DeSantis to sink further and ultimately decide against throwing his hat in the ring. Nothing he tries seems to be sticking.
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