DeSantis aides to donors: Trump’s current lead is a polling sugar high

Top advisers to Gov. Ron DeSantis said Donald Trump’s current polling lead was being inflated by sympathy from Republican voters over Trump’s indictment in New York. Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

MIAMI — Ron DeSantis’ top political advisers on Thursday detailed the path forward for the Florida governor in the Republican presidential primary — and brushed aside bad headlines surrounding his rocky campaign launch the night before.

Appearing before a private gathering of donors at the Four Seasons Hotel, three top DeSantis lieutenants — Ryan Tyson, Sam Cooper and Jason Johnson — argued that the governor remained poised throughout a malfunction-plagued appearance on Twitter Spaces, where he unveiled his candidacy in a conversation with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. They said DeSantis had a clear path to defeat former President Donald Trump, and added their belief that Florida would emerge as a key state that could help to determine the outcome of the nomination contest, according to two people present for the presentation.

The group of DeSantis advisers also walked through polling in four early primary states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — and made the case that the governor was viewed more favorably than Trump in each. They made the case that Trump’s current polling lead was being inflated by sympathy from Republican voters over his indictment in New York over a case involving hush money payments to a porn star and would diminish over time. They conceded that the former president would likely not go below roughly 35 percent support in a primary but that such a floor allowed for DeSantis, his strongest rival, to take a larger share of the remaining 65 percent of the vote.