Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has centered much of his presidential campaign’s messaging on contrasting his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic with that of former President Donald Trump. DeSantis and his campaign surrogates have repeatedly tried to convince Republican voters that Trump was beholden to the 82-year old immunologist, Anthony Fauci. The pro-DeSantis SuperPAC, Never Back Down, dumped half-a-million into ads attacking Fauci – and in conjunction Trump – in the early days of the primary campaign.
But COVID-19 has almost entirely faded from the electorates conscious, according to data in an ABC survey which found a majority of primary voters saw inflation as the top concern in 2024. Immigration came in a modest second place with 35 percent saying it was the most important election issue. The response of lawmakers to the pandemic didn’t even register as statistically significant, i.e. not even one percent.
Nearly a year ago, when FiveThirtyEight asked Republican voters what issue was most important to them, 50 percent said inflation. COVID-19 and its response, even then, didn’t register. The pandemic has so faded from the American political mind that a July Siena/NYT survey didn’t even bother asking voters about it anymore.
Despite the lack of interest amongst Republicans in re-litigating the pandemic, the DeSantis campaign is showing no signs of changing course. Even if they did, it may be too-little-too-late. The Florida Governor slipped to fifth place in a recent New Hampshire poll. In Iowa, a state DeSantis admits his campaign’s future hinges on winning, the Trump campaign recently announced it had secured twice the number of signed Iowa caucus pledge cards as the DeSantis campaign. In FiveThirtyEight’s running poll average, Trump leads DeSantis nationally by over 40 points.
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