The Apprentice

Is Ron DeSantis viable … in 2028?

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attends the Thanksgiving Family Forum on November 17, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

When was the last time a candidate badly underperformed expectations in his first campaign for president, then went on to win the White House later?

Trump won the first time he ran. (Seriously ran, that is. His 2000 Reform Party stunt candidacy doesn’t count.) Ditto Barack Obama. Ditto George W. Bush. Ditto Bill Clinton.

The last president who failed in his first try was Bush the elder, but not every failure is due to poor performance. Ronald Reagan was the favorite in 1980 and Bush managed to beat him in Iowa en route to earning a spot on the national ticket. It’s hard to call winning the vice presidency a disappointment.

Reagan also failed in his first run for president, but that can’t fairly be described as underperformance, either. He faced an incumbent in Gerald Ford in 1976 and nearly pulled an historic upset. If anything, he beat expectations.

The only bona fide first-time disappointment to end up as president recently is the current guy, who was regarded as a serious contender in the 1988 cycle before plagiarizing his way into irrelevance. So take heart, Ron DeSantis fans: There is hope for a newbie candidate who underwhelms in his first grab at the brass ring.

All it took for Joe Biden to regain national viability was 32 years, another failed run for president in 2008, two terms as vice president, and an image makeover across decades that turned a brash young loudmouth in the Senate into a kindly enfeebled grandpa. Even then, he barely overcame an opponent in 2020 whose portrait might as well accompany the term “dark triad” in psychology textbooks.

DeSantis 2056 is a live possibility. What about DeSantis 2028?

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “It’s hard to call winning the vice presidency a disappointment.”

    A lot of vice presidents would beg to differ.

    “DeSantis 2056 is a live possibility. ”

    Heard it here first

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  2. Kevin M

    National polls are meaningless at this point, as 90% of the respondents have little information about anyone but Donald Trump. In the early primary states, Trump is 20 points lower than nationally.

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    Abridge683

    The very idea of a Kari Lake or J. D. Vance presidency scares the heck out of me. Even the thought of it. I don't want to live in a country where that happens. Trump is bad enough but these lickspittles are beneath contempt.

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  4. Mirabelle

    Will Trump be dead in '28? If not, he will siphon off voters somehow. If he's still around, and I'll assume he lost in '24, he'll continue to scramble the party and the brains of the party's voters. But let's say DeSantis, for reasons unknown to us in our present reality, gets the '28 nomination. He'll be up against the charismatic pretty boy, Newsom. It is well-established that people attribute more success to and have more confidence in attractive people. Newsom will make DeSantis look like an antisocial slob. And I'm not sure there will be catchy culture wars then. The right has exhausted most of them already. What will R's be running on in '28? If Trump lost, MAGA issues lost. And R's don't have anything else. Maybe Mike Johnson will breed a strain of Christian Nationalism that catches on, and they run on that. In that case, DeSantis is likely not the nominee.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      Hey DeSantis can represent us short, antisocial, regular-looking guys!

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  5. Avatar photo
    Wade Paulsen

    This is a dumb column that shows better than anything else that Nick had already checked out for the holidays (although he regurgitated a bunch of words -- without troubling a single brain cell).

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  6. Wes.Bridges

    I will not vote for an authoritarian. I will not vote in 2028 for anyone who endorses an authoritarian in 2024. If political survival in 2024 requires the kissing of authoritarian rings or other appendages, better to write a book or become a college president. Doesn’t anyone have a vestige of self-respect? Never mind. It’s a rhetorical question.

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    1. Christopher Lake

      Wes, I agree with all that you wrote, above, and moreover, I can't support *any* candidate for President who refuses to plainly speak the truth about Trump to voters. This is one of the multiple reasons that I can't support DeSantis, and it's actually *the* main factor, at this point, that is keeping me from committing to voting for Nikki Haley in the Republican primary election in Maryland. Like DeSantis, she has publicly committed to supporting Donald Trump for President even if he were a *convicted felon*-- and he has already very clearly proven his lack of respect for the Constitution. The man simply will never concede political defeat. He does not, and will not, respect our electoral process. In his pursuit to illegally remain President, he was more than willing to put other people in physical danger, such as his own Vice President, Mike Pence. Nikki Haley *knows* all of these things about Trump, and yet, she has still publicly committed to support him if she doesn't win the Republican nomination. I know that many of my fellow conservatives in the comment sections at "The Dispatch" will strongly disagree with my perspective, but I have to be able to live with myself and my vote, and I can't support Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley in good conscience.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Matthew Thirteen

        That is a respectable position. I wish more voters had their own opinions and weren't 'team' players like the GOP primary candidates who for all intents and purposes make the GOP crime boss stronger by their inaction and cowardly campaigning.

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  7. Pundette

    It's one of the great tragedies of our recent and current political moment that an accomplished leader and executive as eminently qualified as Ron DeSantis cannot get past the clown show of our current primary system. He has an awkward smile! He wears lifts in his shoes! Off with his head.

    Our system is akin to auditioning a pediatric brain surgeon on how well he can execute a pirouette on a unicycle.

    Idiocracy. We'll deserve whatever we get.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Matthew Thirteen

      I think the truth about humans is that they will make a choice within seconds of literally seeing a candidate then cherry pick positions quotes and events to justify their unconscious decision based on what they originally saw and the reptilian brain that guided them. It's hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and the desire to survive until tomorrow.
      Would any election results of the past be that different if there were no campaigning and we only had to choose based on a ballot with just pictures? I doubt it. Humans are not as sophisticated as they aspire to be.

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  8. Betsybowditch

    In the case of Mitt Romney back in 2008, John McCain's national security background which Romney lacked was very important as the primaries kicked off. By the time the election rolled around, Romney's business background would have been more important than national security.

    But the GOP candidates today aren't distinguished in the way the 2008 group was in terms of background and competencies.

    The fact that campaigning increasingly plays out on the social media works against those who came up short the first time, or several times, from being able to fundraise to try again. Scott Walker anyone? New faces drive traffic.

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  9. Brian The 2nd

    I just never saw the appeal of DeSantis, and still don't.

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  10. Indisguise

    When Trump gets to 100% it will mean he is the last person in the party.

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    1. Martin W Kraegel III

      Nobody knows how any of this is supposed to function once Trump exits this mortal coil and is not around to function as the central cult figure. Because that's what we're left with once you take away the excuses and delusions and rationalizations and conspiracy theories.

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    2. Martin W Kraegel III

      It's a giant personality cult.

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