DeSantis' long game for the other 20%
You can already see Tim Scott blossoming in Iowa and spot Chris Christie's base in New Hampshire. DeSantis needs field compression before...or soon thereafter.
You can imagine the conversation being had during that late December holiday week that buttons together Christmas and New Years.
Chris Sununu pulls Chris Christie aside after an Exeter town hall. Being fellow GOVs from the northeast, a certain mutual respect permits Sununu to deliver his message directly to his straight-talking counterpart from New Jersey:
“Chris, ya gotta get out. You’ve run an admirable race and landed some punches I’m envious of. And wow, you cleaned up in the debates. But you don’t have the breadth of support nationally to win the nomination. And your continued presence in the race now only benefits Trump. Do it for the party. And the country.”
It’s a month before the Republican primary in New Hampshire and Christie is sitting in a virtual tie for second place with Ron DeSantis. But there’s nowhere else for him to go. He’s dead in the desert in Nevada and single-digit surfing in South Carolina and doesn’t have the funds to trudge on to Super Tuesday.
In essence, he’s playing spoiler in the fight to topple Donald Trump.
Can the hulking Christie swallow his Boardwalk-sized pride and take one for the team?
Does Tim Scott continue to run through the tape in South Carolina after a sterling finish in Iowa — or is he, too, confronted with an existential dilemma about his role in elevating the 2024 GOP nominee?
The great compression of the 2024 GOP field — when and how it happens — is resting heavy in the minds of DeSantisland,