Ex-Trump Official Lays Out How DeSantis Can Beat Trump
Ron DeSantis needs to campaign to the "right" of Donald Trump on major issues in order to have a chance at claiming the GOP presidential nomination, according to Kayleigh McEnany, who served as press secretary during the Trump administration.
The Florida governor is expected to announce the official launch of his 2024 campaign on Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. ET as part of an audio-only Twitter conversation with the site's owner, Elon Musk.
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John Ellis, a political analyst and founder of the daily newsletter News Items, told Newsweek that DeSantis will likely attempt to make up for three months of lost time by focusing his efforts and campaign war chest—which is reportedly bigger than $110 million—on winning either the Iowa or New Hampshire primaries, or both. If he does, Ellis believes DeSantis "has a shot" at giving Trump a challenge.
Ellis said that American politics is largely defined not by education, not by income, but by where you live. He refers to four main types of voting blocs: urban, suburban, ex-urban and rural.
"Trump's base is ex-urban. It is rock solid," Ellis said. "It hasn't moved one inch since the 2022 midterms, even though everybody and their brother was saying that Trump was a loser and that he was finished. And if you looked at his support in rural and ex-urban America, he was the strongest he ever has been.
"If DeSantis is going to beat Trump, he is going to have to take rural voters away from Trump. The way he has chosen to go about that is to go very hard right on cultural issues," he said.