FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. ― Less than a month from Election Day, Ron DeSantis’ Martha’s Vineyard stunt has been swept off front pages and newscasts by Hurricane Ian’s floodwaters, giving the prickly, fight-picking Florida governor a reset in the race that could let him cruise into a second term.
Barely two weeks ago, DeSantis was dominating television screens explaining why he had tricked Venezuelan asylum-seekers into going to Martha’s Vineyard aboard a flight he had chartered using taxpayer money. Now, the Republican governor is dominating those same screens detailing his response to a deadly storm.
It’s a response that even Democratic President Joe Biden has praised, and, perhaps even more problematic for the challenger hoping to unseat him next month, it has burned two weeks and counting off the clock ticking down to the Nov. 8 election that Charlie Crist can never get back.
“It is what it is,” said Crist, the former GOP governor who is now seeking the job as a Democrat. “It doesn’t discourage me one iota.”
Still, Crist’s team privately understands that a challenger not in government simply cannot realistically compete for public attention in the aftermath of a catastrophe.
In recent days, Crist loaded his campaign bus with hurricane supplies and delivered them to a hard-hit school and a poor, largely neglected Latino community outside Fort Myers.
Meanwhile, DeSantis — who inherited a widely admired emergency response infrastructure built by both Democratic and Republican governors and legislators over three decades — has been able to boast about providing a temporary bridge to storm-devastated Pine Island within two days. And on Tuesday, he announced that a washed-out causeway to Sanibel Island was repaired enough to allow emergency traffic and would be reopened to residents on Oct. 21 — in time for the only scheduled debate between him and Crist three days later.
Last week, DeSantis appeared with Biden during his visit to Fort Myers Beach, and even had the chance to speak from behind a lectern with the presidential seal. Later, Biden said DeSantis has “done a good job” with storm recovery.
“In a perverse way, Hurricane Ian has been an unalloyed success for DeSantis. He has acquitted himself well as a crisis leader. He has dominated the news for weeks without a major faux pas,” said Mac Stipanovich, a longtime GOP consultant and a chief of staff to former Gov. Bob Martinez. “And Crist’s window of opportunity has been considerably narrowed on the calendar. This is a classic case of a very dark cloud that had a sparkling silver lining as far as DeSantis is concerned.”
Neither DeSantis’ office nor his campaign responded to HuffPost’s request for comment.
In late September, DeSantis was on the defensive, even among many Republicans, over his rounding up of Venezuelan refugees in Texas and dumping them in the vacation enclave off the Massachusetts coast.
The action was the latest in a string of moves that appeared designed to appeal to his party’s hardcore base voters. Previously, DeSantis had suspended the elected state attorney in Tampa for saying he would not prosecute people under the newly passed abortion law as well as pushed through legislation punishing Disney for criticizing his law that prohibits teachers in early grades from discussing sexual orientation.
Ian’s arrival and aftermath has allowed DeSantis to enter the final stretch of the campaign — when many undecided voters first start paying attention — as a more mainstream governor doing important work.
“At this point it’s more about margin than about result,” said one prominent GOP consultant and DeSantis critic on condition of anonymity.
He predicted that DeSantis, who appeared likely to win by no more than a handful of percentage points in September, could approach former Gov. Jeb Bush’s 13-point victory margin in his 2002 reelection.
“This is a classic case of a very dark cloud that had a sparkling silver lining as far as DeSantis is concerned.”
– Mac Stipanovich, longtime GOP consultant
Crist insists the race remains a “dead heat,” while his campaign argues Ian has not really helped DeSantis’ image with voters but acknowledges it has frozen the race at an inopportune time for Crist.
This week, Crist returned to a favorite pre-storm message: reminding Democratic, independent and suburban Republican female voters that DeSantis supports and signed into law a 15-week abortion ban that does not include exceptions for rape or incest. The ban remains on hold pending court challenges.
“It is absolutely barbaric. A barbaric piece of legislation that we’re going to overturn,” Crist told a packed community center in West Palm Beach on Tuesday, a day his campaign had dubbed the “Choice Day of Action” to focus on that issue. “Ron DeSantis needs to go, and on Nov. 8, his show is over.”
On his side, Crist has DeSantis’ most vocal critics, who are confident that four weeks is plenty of time for him to revert to his normal self after the Ian recovery fades into the background.
“He’s not going to change his behavior in 27 or however many days are left. He’s not going to change his spots overnight,” said Bill Sauers, a 66-year-old union officer who attended Crist’s rally. “We can win.”
