‘Don’t Be Fooled’: Why Leading GOPers Are Taking Aim At Both Trump and DeSantis

March 10, 2023

For his part, DeSantis has ignored both Trump and the other likely Republican candidates in public. Speaking on the first anniversary of the Ukraine war, Pence rejected, with a characteristic reference to scripture, DeSantis’s uncertain trumpet. “In order to beat Trump you have to beat Trump,” he said. When they tested a variety of potential candidates among Virginia Republican primary voters, DeSantis was only leading Trump by three points. Yet when the firm narrowed the choice to only the two top candidates it wasn’t even close: DeSantis was leading Trump by 17.