He declared war on "woke" and made fighting "wokeness" one of the central points of his campaign. Now, it's becoming increasingly evident that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign is in hot water after a majority of likely Republican voters said they want the government to stay away from influencing what corporations can and can't support.
According to a New York Times poll, which was conducted between July 23-27, 52 percent of Republicans who will likely vote in the GOP primary election said they'd support a candidate who thinks the "government should stay out of deciding what corporations can support" over one promising "to fight corporations that promote 'woke' left ideology."
This isn't ideal for the DeSantis campaign, whose biggest focus on the campaign trail has been how he plans to combat "wokeness" as president and the extent to which he's done so in Florida through his "Stop WOKE Act," which currently cannot be enforced in higher education due to a temporary injunction, along with other initiatives.
As he continues to double and triple-down on his anti-woke schtick, it doesn't seem like it's doing him many favors in the race to become the GOP presidential nominee.
According to the same New York Times poll, support to put DeSantis in the Oval Office came in 37 percentage points behind that of former President Donald Trump, who appears to be running off with the nomination as DeSantis and every other GOP candidate has failed to keep up.
But as his presidential campaign falters and likely GOP voters make it clear that fighting "wokeism" isn't a priority, DeSantis keeps belaboring the point.
Three months after beer company Bud Light ran a short-lived marketing campaign featuring transgender content creator Dylan Mulvaney, the governor of Florida continues to think this is what voters are clamoring for, going as far as threatening Bud Light's parent company, AB InBev, with legal action for breaching "legal duties owed to its shareholders."
If DeSantis and his team don't change their focus, he risks becoming part of the next iteration of presidential candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio who quickly got stuck repeating the same talking point again, and again, and again.
And those campaigns don't tend to end up in the White House.
