By Jim Turner
The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis and his rebooted campaign are getting attention as he approaches Wednesday’s first Republican presidential debate in distant second place in most polls.
Will his demeanor — often panned as insular and standoffish — produce an uncharacteristically enthusiastic Howard Dean-like moment? Will he drop a one-line zinger that draws attention from the rest of the night?
But with the first votes in Iowa and New Hampshire still months away, the debate in Milwaukee isn’t make or break for DeSantis, at least not according to University of Central Florida political-science professor Aubrey Jewett.
But risks remain.
“I don’t think this is like his last opportunity,” Jewett said. “But it might be sort of his last best opportunity to really change the tone of his campaign and be viewed more as the number one challenger to (former President Donald) Trump, as opposed to the guy that’s sinking in the polls.”
Jewett said debates sometimes can be game-changers and produce breakout moments. But more often, “they’re not.”
“It’s definitely important. They talk about how (DeSantis) needed to turn the campaign around, and this will be the first big opportunity to do that,” Jewett said. “They’ve had DeSantis change his visits and his message. But so far, the reboot looks a lot like the original and hasn’t done much good. So, this is certainly their biggest opportunity since the announced reboot of the campaign to actually try to do something different.”
A Fox News poll released Thursday said Trump leads the GOP primary contest at 53 percent, while DeSantis is at 16 percent. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy was next at 11 percent. Fox also had Democratic President Joe Biden up on Trump by 3 percentage points and DeSantis by 5 points.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday had Trump drawing 57 percent support from Republican and Republican-leaning voters. DeSantis was at 18 percent, while Ramaswamy was at 5 percent.
More important to Jewett, Emerson College released a New Hampshire poll Tuesday that showed former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a distant second to Trump and 1 point up on DeSantis.
“National polls are fun. National polls are interesting. But as I teach my class, always remember … it’s the state-by-state races that really matter, both in the primaries and in the general,” Jewett said. “That was bad news, no getting around that.”
A BIG RUSE?
While the camps of DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom work on rules and logistics for a potential head-to-head debate, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried doesn’t expect the event to happen.
“I think at the end of the day this was a big ruse,” Fried said during an appearance on the “Deeper Dive with Dara Kam” podcast.
Fried, the former state agriculture commissioner who ran unsuccessfully for governor last year, said DeSantis agreed to debate Newsom “in his desperation to get media and good media attention.”
Fried also doesn’t expect much from DeSantis during next week’s Republican debate.
“He’s a horrible, horrible debater,” Fried said. “I’ve never seen him do a good debate. He’s going to get annihilated by the first Republican debate.”
When asked in June by Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, Newsom said he’d be “all in” on debating DeSantis. The Florida governor agreed to the debate while appearing Aug. 2 on Hannity’s show.
DITCHING THE ‘COMMUNITY’
Florida could be down to a single “community” college next year, as Tallahassee Community College President Jim Murdaugh said a name change is underway.
“I do think it’s time,” Murdaugh said Tuesday during the “Greg Tish Show” on Tallahassee’s Real Talk 93.3 radio station. “I’ve been reluctant, because, again, you will not find anybody more proud to be at Tallahassee Community College. But I understand that people may not want to have a bachelor’s degree hanging on their wall from a community college.”
The school’s Board of Trustees has started a process to look at what other colleges have done and might bring in a professional branding firm to help settle on a new name that ultimately would need legislative approval, Murdaugh said.
“We don’t want to damage our brand,” Murdaugh said.
Opened in 1966 as Tallahassee Junior College, the school known locally as TCC became Tallahassee Community College in 1970.
All but two of the 28 schools in the Florida College System — TCC and Hillsborough Community College — use the name “state college” or more simply “college” instead of “community college.”
The change away from “community college” began when St. Petersburg Junior College became St. Petersburg College in 2001 with the addition of four-year degrees.
SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE WEEK: “What debate? Trump could time his Georgia arrest to blot out first matchup.” — Tallahassee-based NBC reporter Matt Dixon (Mdixon55) on X (formerly Twitter).
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