Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on DeSantis’s campaign reset and Biden’s messaging concerns

Geoff Bennett:

While Republican presidential hopefuls duke it out in Iowa, President Biden hits the road to sell his agenda.

For analysis of the 2024 campaign, we turn to our Politics Monday team. That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

It's great to see you both, as always.

So we have got these Republican presidential candidates colliding in Iowa. Let's talk about Ron DeSantis, because he's trying to reset his campaign.

And, Amy, you wrote a piece about his perceived failure to launch. What did you find?

Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

Well, I did this by looking both at the polling, so what are we looking at by the by the data points, but also listening to what voters have been saying across the country, interviewing Sarah Longwell, who's been on the show many times, who's a strategist who interviews a great number of Republican voters.

And what it seems that Ron DeSantis, his biggest stumble, I would say, is — was messaging and timing. The timing was he decided to wait until earlier this summer to officially launch his campaign. But he was the hottest at the end of 2022, wondering if he had taken that momentum and built on it, announced earlier and kept driving that, rather than going back to Tallahassee doing his job as governor.

And the second is messaging. It was clear in all of those focus groups that she had been conducting over the last year, what Republican voters, especially those who are in the camp of either I'm never voting for Donald Trump or I have liked Donald Trump, but I'm open to other alternatives, maybe 50, 60 percent of the electorate, what they were saying is, they liked Ron DeSantis because he looked electable and he could win swing voters.

DeSantis instead decided to focus his message on being the woke candidate — or the anti-woke warrior, going after cultural issues, using his time at the governor's office to go after a whole bunch of those issues, and it kind of moved him off of that talking point that was really hitting home for those voters.

And then the indictments happened, and it just drowned everything else out.

Geoff Bennett:

Tam, on the issue of momentum, how important is Iowa to Ron DeSantis or any other Republican at this point who wants or, I guess, really needs to show that they can mount a serious challenge to Donald Trump, who is the dominant force?

Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

It is the first opportunity to pierce the inevitability of Donald Trump.

And it may be one of the only opportunities, because momentum is a thing in primaries. And, at the moment, he is the — has the prohibitive lead in the polls. I was in Iowa a couple of weeks ago. I was on vacation. I was riding my bike across Iowa. So I saw a lot of back roads, a lot of front yards, a lot of driveways. And what I will tell you is I saw a lot of Trump signs, and I saw nothing else.

Well, I did see one truck with Burgum taped to the side of it, but tons of Trump signs, Trump 2024 signs, brand-new ones, Trump 2020 signs with Mike Pence's name taped over and covered up. The indictments have done nothing but consolidate support behind Trump among the Republican base.

And all of these other people are out there biting at his heels trying to get some attention. And he showed up at the fair for like an hour-and-a-half and everybody's still talking about him.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, as we sit here, we are awaiting a potential fourth indictment from the DA in Fulton County, Georgia, related to Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the election.

It almost — it feels kind of ridiculous to reduce this…

Amy Walter:

Doesn't it?

Geoff Bennett:

… to what it means in terms of in terms of politics.

Amy Walter:

Yes.

Geoff Bennett:

But, politically, what effect will it have?

Amy Walter:

It feels like we're just listening to white noise. And you can hear that too from voters. That's sort of what they're saying is, I don't know, what indictment are we on, what's happening?

And as you heard in Lisa's piece, you do have a segment of Republican voters who believe that all of this is targeted at Donald Trump, because these nefarious actors don't want him to run for president, don't want him to win again.

But I think, for the folks who are outside of that group of voters, they too don't really — they have already made their mind up about Donald Trump and whether these are serious charges or not serious charges. Does this move the needle? Probably not.

I think the only thing that moves the needle is when we get to a place where we actually have potentially a trial. And there was some news today that if, indeed, an indictment does come down from Georgia, this could be televised, unlike the federal cases.

That adds just an interesting new layer. Not saying that it is necessarily going to get people to feel one way or the other. But it would be — just imagine this happening, a televised trial of a presidential — potential presidential nominee going into an election.

We have — we have just — obviously, we have never seen anything like this.

Geoff Bennett:

Indeed. And, as for the Democrats, President Biden, members of the Cabinet, members of the administration are going across the country on this anniversary of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

And then, separate from that, we now have a special counsel in the Hunter Biden case. How does the Biden White House and the Biden campaign, how do they view all this?

Tamara Keith:

So, I traveled with President Biden all last week as he went out West and tried to make the pitch for his policies.

And he also attended a couple of fund-raisers that are closed door, no cameras, no audio, but reporters could be there to watch. And he's more revealing about his thoughts in terms of politics when he's in these fund-raisers talking to donors.

And what he said, a couple of things stand out. One, he said, I'm not so sure we should have called it the Inflation Reduction Act, because people just don't understand what's in it. And then he also said that he just doesn't feel like he's getting the credit he deserves. But he's willing to be patient.

I think what I witnessed last week traveling with the president is exactly what his campaign is going to look like for the next year, which is him shouting from the rooftops trying to get people to pay attention and know what Congress passed and what he signed in those first two years in office.

Geoff Bennett:

Hasn't this White House been saying that for like two years?

Tamara Keith:

Oh, yes.

Geoff Bennett:

And once people know what the what the infrastructure bill does, and once people know what the Inflation Reduction Act does, then you will watch the president's poll numbers go up.

Tamara Keith:

And then, five years from now, when people actually know what are in — what is in those bills, maybe they will.

But that is the challenge is that policies, individual policies, tend to be popular, but nobody knows what the Inflation Reduction Act is. Nobody knows what the bipartisan infrastructure plan is or who voted for it. And so that is the ongoing challenge.

And the other ongoing challenge is the entire time that the president was traveling, everyone was paying attention to Donald Trump and his legal travails and the latest and criminal thing that happened in this jurisdiction or that jurisdiction. And no one was paying attention to anything that President Biden was saying in speeches that admittedly are pretty repetitive.

He doesn't make news when he's out there pitching the public on his policies.

Geoff Bennett:

So then how can this White House make policy cool again?

(Crosstalk)

Amy Walter:

Yes, well, it's about a contrast. That's what campaigns are for, right?

Geoff Bennett:

Yes.

Tamara Keith:

Right.

Amy Walter:

And so I think you're going to hear as we get into the campaign less about, isn't this great? Isn't this great? Let me tell you, I'm going to convince you that it's great, Geoff, and more about here's what we're doing for you, here's what my opponent is doing that's going to hurt you, or they're not focusing enough on you.

The interesting thing, I do think that the contrast between a president going out and selling an economic plan and his economic successes versus the trials was a good contrast. But the Hunter Biden's story also made the news, and that sullied it a little bit. It didn't make it as clean of a contrast between these two.

Geoff Bennett:

So, they're trying to make the election a choice, not a referendum on President Biden.

Amy Walter:

Absolutely.

Tamara Keith:

As always.

Geoff Bennett:

That's true.

Tamara Keith and Amy Walter, it's great to see you both.

Amy Walter:

Good to see you.