Factbox-DeSantis 2024 campaign’s missteps and blunders

By Tim Reid

(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis replaced his campaign manager on Tuesday, as he tries to recalibrate his struggling White House bid. Here are some of the missteps made by the Florida governor and his campaign.

UKRAINE WAR A “TERRITORIAL DISPUTE”

In March, even before he had officially launched his campaign, DeSantis called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute” and claimed the war was not a “vital” U.S. interest.

While those comments reflect the thinking of part of the Republican base, the blowback from several rival candidates and Republican leaders was so strong that DeSantis was forced to walk back those comments a few days later.

It was the first real sign, after DeSantis appeared as a formidable challenger to former President Donald Trump at the beginning of the year, that he was not as sure-footed a candidate as many had believed.

TWITTER LAUNCH BLUNDER

In May, DeSantis decided to formally announce his presidential bid during an online forum on Twitter, now known as X, hosted by its billionaire owner Elon Musk.

It was one of the most catastrophic campaign launches in recent U.S. political history.

For nearly 25 glitch-filled minutes, the audio-only feed failed time and again, overshadowing DeSantis’ big announcement and undermining his attempt to gain ground on Trump.

Political analysts said it was a rookie mistake to hold a major event over which DeSantis had no control.

ABORTION BAN, TEACHING OF SLAVERY TURNS OFF DONORS

DeSantis signed a series of laws in Florida he believed would burnish his credentials with the right-wing Republican base.

That included an April law banning abortions after six weeks, and a new series of teaching standards unveiled in July that tells the state’s public school pupils that Black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills.

Last week, Robert Bigelow, DeSantis’ biggest donor, told Reuters he will not donate more money unless DeSantis moderates his policy positions. Bigelow said the Florida abortion ban was his motivating factor.

DeSantis also received wide condemnation for the slavery provision in Florida’s new teaching curriculum. Tim Scott, a fellow Republican White House rival who is Black, decried Florida’s new standards, describing slavery as “devastating” for Black families.

EXTREME VIDEOS THAT EVEN SOME REPUBLICANS COULD NOT STOMACH

In June and July the DeSantis campaign shared videos that were condemned as anti-gay rights and racist, even by some fellow Republicans.

The first ad came at the end of June’s Pride Month, when his campaign shared a video highlighting some of Trump’s past statements supporting gay rights.

The video featured a montage of muscle-bound men, bolts of electricity flying from DeSantis’ eyes, and an image of actor Christian Bale in the movie ‘American Psycho’, in which he plays a serial killer.

In July the DeSantis campaign fired a staffer who shared a pro-DeSantis video that featured him at the center of a Sonnenrad, a symbol appropriated by the Nazis in 1930s Germany and still used by white supremacists.

ODD COMMENTS ON THE TRAIL

DeSantis has long had a reputation as being a poor politician when in more intimate settings with voters. On the campaign trail, some of DeSantis’ off-the-cuff comments have come off as strange or dissonant.

Last week, he vowed to start “slitting throats” inside the federal bureaucracy if he becomes president. Asked if he had watched Trump on Aug. 3 being arraigned for a third time this year on criminal charges, DeSantis said he had been too busy overseeing an execution in Florida.

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