Questions remain about Ron DeSantis’ Virgin Islands strategy

Reports are that the Ron DeSantis campaign is telling donors he has a shot at winning delegates in next month’s caucuses in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

However, what the campaign’s plan is to do that remains unclear at this writing.

Spokesman Andrew Romeo didn’t respond to a couple of our inquiries regarding how Team DeSantis intends to tackle the Feb. 8 plebiscite.

Meanwhile, VI Republicans say there has been no communication between the DeSantis operation and local officials, in contrast to the Trump and Haley operations, which have plans for VI events the day after the New Hampshire Primary (an event before which the Governor has downsized his operation.

“Nobody in the Virgin Islands has heard from DeSantisworld or Never Back Down since before Iowa. The campaign has publicly said they’re only playing in Nevada and South Carolina. Meanwhile, Trump is sending Congressman Wesley Hunt, a Black Republican from Texas who sits on the House committee overseeing the Virgin Islands and other U.S. territories, to stump across the islands,” asserted one connected local member of the GOP.

The lack of communication between the DeSantis camp and Virgin Islands Republicans was made evident recently when Gordon Ackley, the chair of the Republican Party in the Virgin Islands, spotlighted Romeo omitting the VI in a social media post where the spokesman said the campaign plans “to compete for every single available delegate in New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and then into March.”

“I guess the DeSantis campaign doesn’t want our votes. The Virgin Islands caucus is third-overall, occurs hours before Nevada on February 8,” Ackley retorted.

Ackley told the St. Croix Source that if “Trump wins New Hampshire, then the Virgin Islands as the next contest will confirm him as the nominee and signify that the race is effectively over, Conversely, if there’s a split decision and someone other than Trump wins New Hampshire then the Virgin Islands will be the first front in what will surely be a protracted campaign for every delegate to the nominating convention in Milwaukee.”

The DeSantis campaign did send a surrogate to the USVI in 2023, one familiar to and funded by Florida taxpayers.

Joseph Ladapo was in the U.S. Virgin Islands on behalf of the Governor, with the Surgeon General appearing at Republican Party receptions Dec. 17 on St. Thomas and Dec. 18 on St. Croix.

The Florida Governor virtually campaigned in the Virgin Islands also. DeSantis made light of the territory’s current inability to vote in Presidential Elections by joking about them being potentially too Democratic for GOP electoral hopes.

“How would the Virgin Islands vote for President — would they be red or blue?” DeSantis asked, as reported by the local St. Thomas Source. “I don’t want to pony up free electoral votes for the other team.”

Independent Sen. Alma Francis-Heyliger asked the Republican presidential candidate about not being able to vote in the Presidential General Election, describing the disenfranchisement as being “almost like you’re in a different class of citizen, even though we are citizens of America.”

Told by the Senator that three of the five territories are Republican, DeSantis then offered an answer, essentially telling the group on the call not to get their hopes up.

“Obviously I think that we have these territories, people are Americans, and they should be treated as equal citizens. How that works with the Electoral College, I’m not sure that there’s going to be necessarily a movement on that front, but I do think just generally speaking, the more equal the better,” DeSantis said, dodging the question.