‘I Can’t Equate This To Anything Else,’ Disney Feud Has Dragged Down DeSantis’ Presidential Hopes

This year will be the year of “what might’ve been” for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Walt Disney Company. The Florida governor started the year with high hopes of being the Republican nominee for President of the United States. While the Walt Disney Co. believed they had a slate of films that would solidify the company as the best in all of entertainment. But despite those high hopes, the feud has dragged them both down, and they end the year trying to reevaluate their situations and find a new path forward. And if both Disney and the governor were being honest, they would say that the feud between the two is partially to blame for their demise.

With a little over two weeks until the Iowa Caucus, Florida Gov Ron DeSantis finds himself in a fight for second place with former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Both are trailing former President Donald Trump by more than 30 percent. In New Hampshire, where DeSantis was winning at the beginning of the year, he is now in fourth place, falling behind Trump, Haley, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

According to a new Quinnipiac University poll, DeSantis has seen a jump in his unfavorable rating among Republicans from 35 percent in February to 53 percent in November. That’s an 18 percent increase since he announced he was running for President. Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy believes that DeSantis’ feud with Disney has hurt him in a state like New Hampshire.

Malloy told the Tampa Bay Times:

I can’t equate this to anything else. You can draw conclusions about Disney and books and universities being shifted. … We’ve never had a situation like this before. DeSantis and Trump are unique.

Governor DeSantis has struggled to find his footing, and it seems that every time he’s about to have his breakout moment, the Walt Disney Company does something that takes his legs out from under him and returns the attention to their feud. Just days before he announced his run for the Republican nomination, Disney announced that it was canceling its Lake Nona project, costing the state billions in tax dollars and thousands of jobs.

Roderick Hart, a professor of government and former dean at the University of Texas Moody College of Communication, said: 

It’s difficult to go from a statewide effectiveness and success to the national scene. All he wants to talk about is Florida. People in Iowa don’t live in Florida. And I think it’s a tired story. I don’t think he’s made the case to Iowans that he knows what Iowans are about. He tends to repeat the same things he says to Floridians, who are a different animal.

While DeSantis has struggled, Disney has faired much better. Variety gave Disney Studios its yearly report card, and it was the lowest grade of any major studio. Disney CEO Bob Iger has said that his goal is to fix Disney films, and he has started that by shaking up its release calendar for 2023. 

Perhaps with a New Year upon us, these two sides will realize that they need each other to be successful and end this feud. Or perhaps mutually assured destruction is their plan instead. Only time will tell.

We will continue to update this story at Disney Fanatic.