Ron DeSantis argues indictment ‘elevated’ Donald Trump

Ron DeSantis said Sunday that Donald Trump’s indictment by Alvin Bragg earlier this year was a turning point in the 2024 Presidential race.

“Look, I think, at the end of the day, the Bragg indictment just elevated him and it wasn’t so much that people were doing it because he was indicted. I think a lot of people, including me, believe that it was a miscarriage of justice,” DeSantis told Howard Kurtz on the Fox News Channel’s “Mediabuzz.”

The Governor added that the indictment benefited Trump because “there was a lot of sympathy” and because it ended up “dominating the media coverage.”

DeSantis stopped short of blaming Trump’s legal travails for his plummet in national polls.

“We always knew with these national polls that that was a sugar high, wasn’t anything we were too concerned about either way,” DeSantis said, vowing to focus on “Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina” and not mentioning Nevada, a state where he has campaigned and is supported by his old friend and former Senate candidate Adam Laxalt.

Trump currently leads national polling by 33 points, according to the Race to the White House average. In Iowa, Trump leads by 24. In New Hampshire, the Trump lead is 29 points. And South Carolina sees a 22 point Trump advantage.

DeSantis has stayed mostly on message during the Trump/Bragg imbroglio, aside from a jab at “porn star hush money payments” during a press conference earlier this year.

“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” he said. “I just can’t speak to that.”

For his part, Trump continues to attack DeSantis, including during a Florida speech about the state’s imperiled property insurance market.

“So we want him to get home and take care of insurance because you have the highest insurance in the nation. And the bill that they passed made it very good for the insurance companies,” the former President said Saturday night in West Palm Beach.