Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
He was the savior, the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Trumpier than Trump in ways that were good, less Trumpy than Trump when it came to late-night tweets and outlandish proposals and bromances with dictators like Kim Jong Un. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was the dream of a Republican establishment that wanted to move beyond Trump while retaining Trump’s supporters.
Now the dream is dead, with DeSantis announcing on Sunday that he was suspending his campaign after a dismal showing in Iowa, where his vaunted door-knocking operation came up short. New Hampshire and South Carolina were not looking any friendlier. Not a candidate usually known for his self-awareness, DeSantis somehow sensed that it was time to call it quits.
The conventional wisdom is that the dream of a DeSantis presidency has merely been deferred until 2028—maybe even preserved by his decision to forego weeks of humiliation that would have culminated in a Super Tuesday trouncing. But I am not so sure. After all, the factors that doomed DeSantis in 2024 will still be around in 2028.