Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is warning GOP voters that legal issues facing former President Donald Trump could harm the party this fall, even though the indictments are hardening support for him now.
“Whatever may be beneficial in the primary doesn’t mean it’s beneficial in the general election,” the Republican governor said Thursday at a CNN town hall in Iowa, home to the Jan. 15 caucuses.
Mr. DeSantis, who trails Mr. Trump in presidential primary polling, frequently bemoans the criminal cases facing Mr. Trump. He says the steady drip of indictments and political hysteria “distorted” the primary and “sucked out a lot of oxygen.”
The governor had been within striking distance of Mr. Trump early in 2022 only to see his polling deficit grow alongside Mr. Trump’s legal troubles.
Mr. DeSantis and other primary contenders have been careful not to side with the charges against Mr. Trump, but they’ve warned about the ramifications of legal drama around the front-runner. Mr. Trump is cruising toward the party nomination while facing trials in New York and Georgia and federal courts in Florida and Washington.
“We’re putting the future of the Republican Party, and the future of the nation, perhaps, in the hands of 12 jurors in heavily Democrat D.C.,” Mr. DeSantis told Iowa voters.
Likewise, contender Nikki Haley used her turn in the CNN spotlight Thursday to warn about the hoopla that follows Mr. Trump.
“Chaos follows him. And we can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it,” said Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. “We have a country to save, and that means no more drama. No more taking things personally.”
Mr. Trump has denied wrongdoing and says the criminal cases are part of a coordinated Democratic attempt to thwart his presidential bid. He has refused to debate his GOP opponents, pointing to his wide lead in polling.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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