Ron DeSantis went to Georgia to visit a gun shop that bills itself as the world’s largest, but the one thing that wasn’t large was the crowd for the Florida governor.
Here is the event:
That’s it? Ron DeSanctimonious went to GA today for this “crowd.” Sad! pic.twitter.com/2gzPoqYbup
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) March 30, 2023
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported before DeSantis visited:
DeSantis picked the suburban gun store for the latest stop on his yet-to-be-announced presidential campaign, part of a media blitz that’s widely seen as a prelude to an official 2024 announcement expected within months.
Democrats, meanwhile, called on DeSantis to scrap the stop at a shop that bills itself as the “World’s Largest Gun Store” days after a deadly mass shooting at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee.
Ron DeSantis visiting a gun store after three 9-year-olds were killed in a Nashville school shooting was a degree of blatant political pandering that was a lot, even by Republican culture war standards.
The larger issue is that DeSantis still can’t seem to draw a crowd when he leaves Florida. He couldn’t get people to come to see him in New York. He fared a little better in Iowa, but in that case, he struggled to interact with human beings.
It looks like Fox News and the big-money Republican donors might be backing the wrong horse. There is no Ron-mentum, so to speak, and if they insist on sticking with DeSantis, it could be the equivalent of handing the 2024 presidential nomination to Trump.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association