MO-Remington : DeSantis 38 Trump 34 Hawley 7

[Florida Man for Crime]

This is DeSantis’ high water mark, much like the Christie 2013 buzz post-win

It may not be his high water mark, but people who are not expecting ups and downs clearly did not pay attention (or were not old enough to be able to pay attention) during the 2016 Republican primary, or for that matter the 2012 one.

One non-Trump candidate will temporarily rise to seemingly high levels of support, and then implode shortly thereafter. Then rinse and repeat until you run out of non-Trump candidates.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Yeah. Trump has 100% name ID and Missouri is a state full of conservative rural Evangelicals.

Trump's base was not conservative rural Evangelicals. Remember, he started things off by losing Iowa, and he could not find a bible verse if one fell from the sky and landed in his lap.

Evangelicals were considering other candidates before eventually falling in line and becoming Trump cultists.

[Florida Man for Crime]

One major difference between 2012 and 2016 is the non Romney and non Trump candidates never had such a commanding lead over the rest of the pack like DeSantis does over the non Trump field today.

Look:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html#!



It is literally one after the other of non-Romney candidates rising to commanding leads over the rest of the pack to challenge Romney, and then collapsing.

First Perry rises to a commanding lead in comparison to everyone else other than Romney. Then people see Perry exposed to the scrutiny of a front runner in a debate, and Perry collapses shortly thereafter.

Next Cain rises to a commanding lead in comparison to everyone else other than Romney. Then people see Cain exposed to the scrutiny of a front runner in a debate, and Cain collapses shortly thereafter.

Next Gingrich rises to a commanding lead in comparison to everyone else other than Romney. Then people see Gingrich exposed to the scrutiny of a front runner (don't remember if it was really a debate that did the coup de grace), and Gingrich collapses.

Next Gingrich rises to a commanding lead in comparison to everyone else other than Romney. Then people see Gingrich exposed to the scrutiny of a front runner (don't remember if it was really a debate that did the coup de grace), and Gingrich collapses.

In 2016, you had the same sort of dynamic with other candidates rising up to challenge Trump, leaving the other ones in the dust for a week or two, and then collapsing, the main difference being that they could not rise as high as the one-hit-wonders of 2012 because Trump was consolidating too quickly.

Also DeSantis unlike the others is not a flash in the pan candidate and has been building his narrative for years at this point .

So had Rick Perry, Gingrich, Scott Walker, etc. They didn't just appear from out of nowhere and suddenly run for President.

At the end of the day the ability to control a narrative is extremely important and DeSantis has shown to be good at that as Well

He followed the narratives set by Trump. He has yet to show that he can set a narrative in opposition to Trump and win out over the Trump narrative.