But the near term seems less cloudy. Even with a spate of press coverage and a bounce in the polls, it’s simply not plausible to suggest that Ramaswamy is poised to knock Donald Trump off his perch—particularly given the fact that he reached this particular height of notoriety by effusively praising the former president. Indeed, FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate poll still has him with a shade under 10 percent of the popular vote, a full five points behind the plummeting DeSantis. But Ramaswamy is mounting a solid challenge for what is, and has been, the only other thing at stake in this Republican primary: Finishing a distant second to Donald Trump. Trump, to be fair, has taken a hit in the wake of his fourth arrest in five months. But nearly 50 percent of GOP primary voters are backing him, per the same poll.
The state of play in the Republican primary as we head into the fall is one of inertia. Theoretically, things could soon heat up. Candidates will visit early primary states more and more; there will be further debates. But for now, there is no sign that a competitive primary might break out. Trump’s lead is vast; multiple arrests have hardly hurt him with the Republican base. Skipping the first debate looks for all the world to have been the smart play. And media coverage hasn’t fomented much movement in the polls; Ramaswamy is thus far not getting a surge, much like the months-long anointment of DeSantis failed to yield a true contender. What’s going to change between now and four months from now?
The answer, at the moment, is “not much.” But the pressure to make the race seem competitive and to anoint various challengers as threats to Trump will remain a going concern of a political media that needs something to talk about over the long haul toward the inevitable. To be charitable, there was a moment when DeSantis did seem like he might snatch Trump’s crown; when he was running more or less neck-and-neck with the former president, riding momentum from a resounding reelection victory in a midterm election cycle in which Trump was an albatross for the GOP. But a series of missteps, combined with increased scrutiny and the growing awareness of what Ron DeSantis was actually like (awkward, weird, off-putting, robotic) sent his nascent candidacy spiraling the same direction of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s 2016 effort.