Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) regrets not adopting a more assertive media strategy when he first announced his 2024 Republican presidential campaign last year.
When DeSantis launched his highly anticipated bid for the presidency, he was selective with what media outlets he spoke with, only making himself more available last summer when his polling and fundraising numbers had declined.
“Presidential campaigns are a lot about media,” DeSantis told Hugh Hewitt on Thursday. “I spent a lot of time on the ground in Iowa, and it’s good. And when you meet people, you convert them. But there’s just so many voters out there that you’ve got to do. And I came in not really doing as much media. I should have just been blanketing. I should have gone on all the corporate shows. I should have gone on everything.”
“We had an opportunity, I think, to come out of the gate and do that and reach a much broader folk,” he said. “Now, I’m everywhere. I mean, I’ll show up wherever.”
DeSantis used his comments to also criticize former President Donald Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for not debating in New Hampshire before next Tuesday’s primary.
“I go out and take questions from voters,” he said. “I’m the only one that’s not at this point running a basement campaign. Biden’s running a basement campaign. Trump won’t debate, won’t take questions from voters. And now, Haley won’t debate and won’t take questions from voters.”
Despite both DeSantis and Haley being walloped by Trump in Iowa, the Florida governor repeated that he had the resources to remain in the race until after Super Tuesday in March.
“If we’d won Iowa, we would have been in a great spot,” he said. “Coming in second gives us the ticket to continue, but I told my people this from the very beginning. I don’t want to be VP, I don’t want to be in the cabinet. I don’t want a TV show. I’m in it to win it, and at some point, you know, if that’s not working out for you, like I recognize that this isn’t a vanity thing for me.”
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DeSantis’s media strategy admission comes after communications director Andrew Romeo defended the governor’s overall campaign strategy to the Washington Examiner following last week’s Iowa debate.
“The governor’s been doing small and intimate events since transitioning to that in July,” Romeo said. “So it’s been a long time that he’s been doing that. It’s been a long time he’s been doing the town halls. I mean, he’s really shined in those settings and then, he also opened up his media engagement too since around July, same time period.”