When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivered his initial speech as a declared presidential candidate in Iowa last week, his first 15 minutes succinctly previewed how Republicans might defeat President Joe Biden next year. The next 30 minutes of DeSantis’ speech then demonstrated how Biden might survive despite all the doubts about his performance and capabilities.
DeSantis spent the first part of his address in an evangelical church outside of Des Moines highlighting all the vulnerabilities on issues such as inflation and the border that have suppressed Biden’s job approval ratings since late summer 2021.
But then DeSantis spent nearly the next half hour detailing an ambitious, exhaustive and aggressively conservative agenda on social issues (such as a six-week abortion ban, and the removal of books from school classrooms and libraries). Those messages thrilled his right-leaning audience, but risk alienating many of the swing voters who have recoiled from former President Donald Trump, particularly in the suburbs of large metropolitan areas across the battleground states. CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, CNN
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