One diner stop at a time: DeSantis tests revamped 2024 strategy to beat Trump
By Gram Slattery
RYE, New Hampshire (Reuters) — Sunday afternoon for Ron DeSantis began at a restaurant. The Florida governor sidled into a booth to chat up a pair of newlyweds. Next he took questions at a barbecue outside a small red barn where onlookers munched on hot dogs.
His day of campaigning for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination ended at a lobster restaurant overlooking a marsh where onlookers snapped photos of him holding one of the excitable crustaceans in his hand.
Such was the first day of DeSantis' «reboot» of his campaign in New Hampshire, the No. 2 state in the Republican nominating contest calendar after Iowa. A win in either could provide momentum against front-runner and former president Donald Trump.
Having burned through cash faster than expected since declaring his candidacy in May and having failed to put a dent in Trump's roughly 30-point lead in Republican primary polls, DeSantis is now leaning into smaller-scale, more intimate events with voters, according to people close to the governor.
DeSantis made his name nationally by opposing many U.S. government policies to prevent the spread of COVID-19. He has since become a leading figure fighting what he argues are overly progressive polices favored by educators and corporations.
Now, he needs to give voters an opportunity to get to know him more intimately, although the new strategy has an inherent risk: DeSantis himself. Even his allies acknowledge he is not known for his natural affability.
The new strategy has the added benefit of being cheap, as the governor can hit multiple venues consecutively, with relatively little staffing and prep work, people close to the campaign say.
If the crowd at the «No B.S.» barbecue at the home of
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