Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has not announced that he is running for president, but he is convincingly acting like one.

DeSantis, who rarely speaks without reminding listeners that he won re-election by a nearly 20% margin, has been touring coast to coast to bring Republican voters and contributors to justice.

He spoke with conservative donors in Florida on Thursday and Republicans in Texas on Friday. He will speak Sunday at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley

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and at a GOP fundraiser in Orange County on Sunday night. He reportedly plans trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, the first caucus and primary states.

DeSantis’ goal seems simple: He hopes to become the consensus alternative to his party’s presumptive frontrunner, former President Trump.

He is already succeeding. Polls, which are entertaining but not predictive at this point, show DeSantis sitting firmly in second place in a race he did not enter.

It’s unusual to have two people so clearly out front at this early stage, GOP strategist Alex Conant told me:

referring to

DeSantis and Trump. That will make it difficult for other potential candidates to progress.

DeSantis has worked his way to the top of the conservative heap by throwing himself as a bare-knuckle fighter in the culture wars.

During the pandemic, he mocked Dr. Anthony Fauci and ordered Florida schools to reopen earlier than most other states

did

. He Hired a Plane to Dump Venezuelan Asylum Seekers in the Mostly Liberal Enclave of Martha’s Vineyard

mass

. He enacted a law to prohibit teachers from discussing sexual orientation before fourth grade (

known to his opponents as

don’t say gay). When Disney executives criticized the law, he denounced them as awake and stripped Disney World of its status as a self-governing district.

Fox News hailed him as a hero. And to many GOP donors and voters, he was beginning to look like a potential merger candidate militant enough to appeal to Trump fans but conventional enough to Republicans tired of the former president’s chaotic style.

Trump noted it with growing anger.

He credited DeSantis, whom he once endorsed, as Ron DeSanctimonious.

He attacked DeSantis for supporting cuts to future Social Security and Medicare spending, a position that was conservative orthodoxy before Trump disavowed it in 2016.

People are finding out he wanted to cut Social Security and raise the minimum age to at least 70, Trump wrote on his social media feed last week

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. He’s like a wheelchair over the cliff.”

that was one

n clear

reference to a 2011 Democratic campaign ad in which then-Rep. Paul

D

Ryan, who chaired the House Budget Committee, throws a white-haired lady off a mountain.

DeSantis wisely avoided trading insults with the most accomplished mud-thrower in modern politics. “It’s silly season,” he said.

But Trump’s attacks are unlikely to stop there.

The question is, does any of it stick and how does DeSantis deal with it? Conant said.

Trump was largely right on one point. When DeSantis ran for Congress in 2012, he argued that the Social Security retirement age should be raised from 67 to 70.

i

In the face of Trump’s offensive, DeSantis retreated. We’re not going to mess with Social Security, he told Fox News last week

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.

DeSantis wasn’t so nimble on a second test: figuring out a coherent stance on the war in Ukraine.

An aggressive congressman in 2014, he criticized then-President Obama for not sending weapons to Kiev. When someone likes [Russian President Vladimir] Putin sees Obama being indecisive, I think that whets his appetite to cause more trouble, he said.

But last month, DeSantis criticized President Biden for sending Ukraine too much aid. They basically have a blank check policy, he falsely complained. I don’t think it is in our interest to get involved in things like the border area or Crimea.

If there was a guiding principle at all, it was hard to find unless it was just against a Democratic president.

DeSantis still has a few months to work on his positions. But all hell is in for a full test in August, when Republicans have scheduled their first presidential debate.

It’s probably going to be a tough one because every other candidate will shoot at him, not just Trump, but everyone else, as they want

to take

DeSantis

‘ place

as the alternative.

If DeSantis stumbles, several students could vie to replace him: former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott (RS.C.), and perhaps others.

And non-Trump Republicans will again face the challenge of rallying around one alternative, remembering their experience in 2016 when a large, fragmented field helped Trump win the nomination.

It may be a cliché, but it’s true: the stakes in this campaign go beyond choosing a nominee. The race will determine the future of America’s conservative party.

If the GOP is still defined by allegiance to Trump, as it was in 2016 and 2020, then he will be the nominee.

If most Republicans want to move past Trump to a less chaotic version of conservatism or just want a candidate who seems more electable, DeSantis has made a logical choice for himself.

But first he has to survive the next six months.