Losing already? Maybe Ron DeSantis' flailing presidential campaign caught 'woke mind virus.'

It seems the Florida governor might want to focus less on the question 'How can I stop wokeness?' and more on 'Why am I losing to someone who keeps getting arrested?'

While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is out there fighting to defeat an invisible thing he calls “the woke mind virus,” his young presidential campaign is stumbling like a drunk fraternity bro with flop sweat.

It all began – poorly – with a messy Twitter launch last month. Since then, the governor’s campaign has generated little more than fodder for memes showing him looking uncomfortable around other people. Voters aren’t rallying around his incessant tilting at woke windmills or his perversely weird war with Disney.

And his chief rival, former President Donald Trump, has remained the far-and-away front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination despite being indicted for the second time this year.

It seems the governor might want to focus less on the question “How can I stop wokeness?” and more on “Why am I losing to someone who keeps getting arrested?”

Ron DeSantis' decision to launch his campaign with Elon Musk on Twitter was ... not great

Let’s start with DeSantis’ pants falling down, metaphorically, as he made his campaign announcement via Twitter Spaces on May 24 along with Elon Musk and some other weird rich guy. The launch was riddled with tech glitches, and then featured DeSantis and Musk whining on about arcane right-wing grievances.

At that point, according to the FiveThirtyEight national average, DeSantis was polling at 20.6% compared with Trump at 54.3%. The Florida governor is a big name – touted incessantly on Fox News and in other conservative media circles – so one would expect a polling bump after he formally announced his run for president.

But there was no bump. At the midpoint of this month, DeSantis was polling at 21.4%, an increase of less than a percentage point. Trump, meanwhile, was down to 53.4%, a decrease of less than a percentage point.

Not exactly Ron-mentum.

Well, maybe state-by-state polls look better for Woke Warrior DeSantis

But what about state-level numbers? Those are what really matter in an election!

In Iowa, a National Research poll taken earlier this month found Trump up by 15 percentage points over DeSantis.

A National Research poll in Nevada, taken after DeSantis’ announcement, had Trump up more than 30 percentage points.

A recent New Hampshire poll by American Greatness found Trump had increased his lead over DeSantis by 5 percentage points over last month. The former president now leads the governor 44% to 12%, according to the poll.