Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is broadening his media outreach strategy by sitting down with CNN as his campaign seeks to counter a range of negative headlines.
But with polling indicating former President Donald Trump is only extending his lead over DeSantis and the rest of the field six months before the Iowa caucuses, critics contend it may be too little, too late for the governor.
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DeSantis, whose interview with CNN's Jake Tapper airs Tuesday, "needs to get people to talk about him in a different way," according to former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.
"For six months, the story has been ‘Why isn’t DeSantis catching on?’ He needs to change the narrative, and taking on CNN is one way to do it," the former President George W. Bush spokesman told the Washington Examiner.
Republican strategist Brad Todd agreed with Fleischer's "taking on CNN" remark, underscoring how DeSantis experienced his "national political peak" when he was being "derided" by the national media during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Now he is trying to get a time machine to take him back to that by setting up planned confrontations," Todd said. "He’s done much better when he was posted up against the media than when he was posted up against Donald Trump, so he’s hoping to reframe things so voters see him in that light again."
But a senior Democratic National Committee aide dismissed the idea one media appearance will help DeSantis, repeating that the governor does not have a strategy problem but a candidate one.
"I don't think it's expectations that have been his undoing," the DNC official said. "What people forget is campaigns are a reflection of the principal. And what you've seen from this campaign over the last seven weeks is you've seen a campaign that is not ready for the national level, you've seen a campaign that is extremely online and detached from the issues of the median voter, and you've seen a campaign that, subset of that, is reactive to whatever winds like are blowing online."
"You also have a candidate, when they are not talking about issues that are in the depths of the internet, you have a candidate that is running to the right and fundamentally undermining his, what I would argue false, argument that he's an electable candidate," the official added.
Since launching his national book tour in February and announcing his campaign in May, DeSantis has spoken predominantly to conservative media, with the exception of NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez, from Fox News prime-time anchors to The Hugh Hewitt Show, The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, and Tomi Lahren Is Fearless.
But while Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have participated in CNN town halls and several other candidates, from former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson to biotechnology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have been booked for one or more of the TV network's programs, DeSantis has not. The governor's CNN sit-down will additionally be broadcast hours before Trump's second Fox News town hall.
The dynamics of a one-on-one interview are not the same as those of a town hall, according to Northeastern University politics professor and Chairman Costas Panagopoulos.
"If the choice was theirs, it's likely the DeSantis campaign believed the governor would be more effective with an interview format, but this does raise questions about Desantis's ability to connect with broader audiences and feeds into a narrative having 'no personality,'" he said. "The decision does little to dispel Trump's attacks suggesting the Florida governor needs a 'personality transplant.'"
Meanwhile, the DeSantis campaign remains adamant the governor's media strategy has so far been focused on fundraising, though it now looks "forward to getting our message out there to the American people."
“The corporate media has gotten a lot wrong, and many outlets have an agenda. Therefore, we don’t consider them entitled to time or access," DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin told the New York Post. “Nonetheless there are many good journalists and truth-seeking reporters, including in mainstream media outlets, and we will work with them on our terms. That’s always been the plan.”
“We don’t do anything just because everybody else does it," he continued. "But we’re open to a wide range of media options, and if the relationship can get to a point where we feel like it would be worth our time, we’ll do it."
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DeSantis's new media strategy coincides with his stagnation in national polls. He now averages 20% support to Trump's 54%, down from his high of 31% in February, according to RealClearPolitics. But the pair's closest rival is Pence, with 6%.
DeSantis, too, has had to mitigate negative stories about his campaign, such as his struggle with retail politics and small-dollar donations. The governor raised $20.1 million during 2023's second quarter, but more than two-thirds of that amount came from donors who cannot contribute any more, and another $3 million can only be used on the general election. Already spending $7.9 million, he fired fewer than 10 staffers of his campaign's staff of 92 as well.