Is Ron DeSantis the heir apparent to Donald Trump? It sure looked like it on Tuesday. In a US midterm election that saw his Republican party underperform nationally, DeSantis was the spectacular outlier, turning in a dominant performance in Florida’s governor race that turned heads among friends and foes alike.
Most remarkable about DeSantis’s win wasn’t just his total margin of victory – a whopping 19 percentage points in a supposed “swing state”. Instead, it was how he did it: making huge inroads in the Latino community, flipping previous Democratic strongholds and eclipsing the share of the vote achieved by the Republicans in 2020 – by double digits in some districts.
Trump’s grip on the Republican base is notoriously strong, and he remains the favourite to earn his party’s nomination. But if DeSantis throws his hat in the ring for president in 2024, Republicans could soon be bracing for civil war. This would pit ultra-Trump loyalists against “establishment” conservatives who think it’s time for a fresh leader.
