Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has faced backlash this week over a video targeting former President Trump for comments made in support of the LGBTQ community. The controversy came as one of his top allies warned the governor faced “an uphill battle.”
Among those furious with DeSantis were Republicans in the LGBTQ community. As Julia Manchester and Brooke Migdon reported, they were turned off by the video, which touted the Florida governor’s actions like establishing a ban blocking transgender people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. The video also blasted Trump for saying, “I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.”
“This was the final nail in the coffin,” former New Hampshire state Rep. Yvonne Dean-Bailey (R) said. “At this point, I can’t see myself voting for DeSantis.”
But the Florida governor doubled down on his comments Wednesday night, calling the criticism of Trump “fair game.”
“I think, you know, identifying Donald Trump as really being a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants, I think that’s totally fair game because he’s now campaigning saying the opposite, that he doesn’t think that you should have men competing in women’s things like athletics,” DeSantis said on OutKick’s “Tomi Lahren is Fearless.”
At the same time, DeSantis has struggled to make headway in the polls, trailing Trump by as much as double digits in some cases.
“It’s the climb” 🎶: Steve Cortes, an adviser and spokesman to Never Back Down, acknowledged that Trump is the “runaway front-runner” even as the former president has seen several indictments pile up.
“Look right now in national polling, we are way behind,” Cortes said during a Twitter Spaces event Sunday night. “I’ll be the first to admit that. I believe in being really blunt and really honest. It’s an uphill battle, I don’t think is an unwinnable battle, but clearly, Donald Trump is the runaway front-runner, particularly since the indictments.”
Still, he asserted in an email that DeSantis had a “strong path to nomination” and that he believed the Florida Republican would “outperform expectations.”
And the controversies apparently haven’t hurt his fundraising so far. On Thursday,his campaign announced he had raised over $20 million in the second quarter.