Casey DeSantis seeks to boost husband Ron’s flagging White House bid

Ron DeSantis’s wife, a former TV anchor, has come under attack after launching her own personal crusade to get her husband into the White House in 2024.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis kisses his wife Casey during a campaign stop in Greenville, South Carolina. Picture: AFP

The wife of Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, Casey, has come under attack after launching her own personal crusade to see the Republican hopeful, whose campaign is struggling to gain momentum despite high hopes, take the White House in 2024.

Mr DeSantis, who remains well behind Donald Trump in surveys of Republican voters, defended his wife after MSNBC, a prominent cable news channel, dubbed her “America’s Karen” over the weekend, as other insults including “Walmart Melania” proliferated on social media.

“It shows my wife is an incredibly strong first lady, a fantastic mother and great wife, and that threatens the left, so she and I shrug it off,” Mr DeSantis, 44, told Fox News on Monday (Tuesday AEST).

Why does the leftist media smear Casey DeSantis?

Because they know her support for families and opposition to radical indoctrination resonates with parents of all political stripes! pic.twitter.com/satDBq0Otr

— Never Back Down (@NvrBackDown24) July 10, 2023

“The message she was bringing in Iowa about the rights of parents and how we are not going to take this any more with the left trying to indoctrinate our kids, they understand that resonates”.

In contrast to Mr Trump’s wife Melania, who has been seen little if at all on the campaign trail, Mrs DeSantis, a former Florida news anchor with a high profile in America’s third most populous state, held her first solo campaign rally for her husband in Iowa last week, as she launched a Mamas for DeSantis website.

This ad by @CaseyDeSantis says it all. This is why we want her husband elected.
pic.twitter.com/UUfRgS31ab

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) July 6, 2023

“We are going to launch the largest mobilisation of mums and grandmothers across the United States of America to protect the innocence of our children and to protect the rights of parents,” she told supporters at a barn in Johnston, Iowa, drawing attention to the pro-parental rights policies that have defined her husband’s tenure in Tallahassee.

“If you want somebody to go up to Washington, DC, to clean house … he is the man to do it … And if I have to crisscross this country, I’ll do it”.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis waves to journalists as his wife Casey looks on. Picture: AFP.

Political strategists see Mrs DeSantis’s new, higher profile role as a way to deflect from Mr DeSantis’s perceived lack of charisma, remind voters of his traditional, telegenic family of five, and secure an articulate, glamorous spokeswoman for a campaign that’s struggled to erode Mr Trump’s increasingly insurmountable lead.

“For many she’s the brighter side to Florida’s angry governor, for other’s she’s become America’s Karen,” MSNBC guest and former Republican congressman turned Democrat supporter David Jolly.

“I called her Serena Waterford. She needs to stop trying to measure the drapes in the White House and think she’s some Jackie O reincarnate,” another guest chimed in, a reference to a character in the dystopian novel The Handmaid‘s Tale.

Donald Trump at a Nevada Republican volunteer recruiting event. Picture: Getty Images

Mrs DeSantis, 43, who won a battle with cancer earlier this year, joined her husband in campaign events throughout June and July in New Hampshire and South Carolina, states along with Iowa whose early primaries, beginning in January next year, will critically influence electoral momentum nationwide.

Politico magazine, a prominent beltway publication in Washington DC, described the Florida First Lady, whose wardrobe choices elicit relentless criticism on social media, as “his greatest asset and his greatest liability”.

For Ron’s 1st inauguration, Jill DeSantis dressed up like Melania Trump.For his second,she dressed up like Jackie O. Now she’s walking around copying all of Jackie O’s outfits because she desperately wants to be First Lady.

Fake it till you make it!

That’s what these 2 do best. pic.twitter.com/GqBZIry1bK

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) March 7, 2023

Her husband, who won a second term as governor of Florida in November in a landslide and was widely seen as the candidate with the best chance of thwarting a Trump comeback, has reportedly attracted an impressive US$20 million in donations in the first six weeks of his campaign, but the dollars are yet translate into popularity.

Mr Trump, who frequently mocks Mr DeSantis for his alleged woodenness and disloyalty (Mr Trump endorsed him for governor in 2018), remains the favourite, enjoying the support of 53 per cent of Republicans to Mr DeSantis’s 21 per cent, according to an average of eight major national polls published by RealClearPolitics published last week.

“Right now in national polling we are way behind, I’ll be the first to admit that,” Steve Cortes, Mr DeSantis’s campaign manager, conceded in a conversation on Twitter last week, calling Mr Trump “the runaway frontrunner.”

The next most popular candidate, in an increasingly crowded field of 11 that makes it more difficult for Mr DeSantis to harness the ‘anti-Trump’ vote in what will be ‘first past the post’ primary contests, was former Vice President Mike Pence, on 6 per cent.

In a bid to peel off some of Mr Trump’s supporters Mr DeSantis has sought to portray the former president as responsible for Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates, which have become less popular in hindsight among Republicans, and too close to the LGBTIQ movement, seen as a corrupting influence within the Republican party.

His campaign launched a controversial video earlier this month accusing Mr Trump of being ‘soft of LGBTIQ issues’, drawing criticism, including from Republicans, as a step too far.

Ron DeSantis actually posted a video bragging about how hateful and bigoted he is toward the LGBT community pic.twitter.com/u678fo65g8

— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) July 4, 2023

“When you see things like this put out by his campaign, it completely destroys the argument that he is more electable than Donald Trump,” Log Cabin Republican president Charles Moran told CNN.

The first Republican debate among 2024 presidential candidates is scheduled for August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.