Yes, pretty much.
You win a primary by protecting your flanks. DeSantis has spent the last year quietly flip flopping to protect his extreme right flank. Which is a good idea in any primary but especially this one against a former president who attracts a lot of attention with some hard right views. But without Trump in the picture, and trust me he’s out if he gets indicted, suddenly being Trump Lite is not a good look and he will have a string of inconsistencies that will be exploited without the cachet of a Reagan, W, or Trump to avoid or explain them.
What the media, and even some of the DeSantis people, don’t get it is, that most Red voters could care less about politics. They think it is fixed against them, when it’s really fixed for them.
They just want problems solved. Make me better off than I was four years ago. Repair roads. Keep taxes low. Let me keep my thoughts of security because I own a gun locked in a safe I could never use properly if it was needed. Don’t kill too many babies. Don’t kill my baby while she is at school. Don’t teach her anything I wouldn’t teach her while I am off earning your tax bill that you spend on stupid stuff. I will vote for you if you personify my ideal of either masculinity or femininity and intelligence, but do it in a self depreciating way. Don’t embarrass yourself and make me feel stupid/regret my vote. These are the politics of the suburbs. And you can’t win without the suburbs.
The “magic” of Trump, to the extent he had any, was he had enough entertainment experience to latch on to those values, while speaking plainly about all the things that don’t work in this country that need to be fixed. Trouble is, he didn’t fix as many as he could have, and kept focusing on what worked for him in the polls: see the above and a triangulation between the two parties records and himself as a rep of “the people.” Strange enough, Obama did the same thing if you really break it down, but without the entertainment experience.
If Trump gets indicted, DeSantis will have to pay the bill in the suburbs for aligning with policies of Trump that maybe were not solving problems. And he won’t have a record of solving Biden’s problems, only reacting to them. And most of those reactions were designed to please/attract Trump voters who have lost faith in the President. They don’t add to his total from moderates and near left suburban voters. The ones he needs to win.
DeSantis has no real record on improving schools, except improving some aspects of teacher pay. His signature accomplishment is dismantling diversity programs. Which poll incredibly well amongst suburban white voters in swing states. Even in Florida itself.
The results are similar on the border issues, law enforcement, some parts of his handling of surplus revenue, etc. He’s made a lot of decisions that aren’t popular with most Republicans and the voters in the general election. But very popular with the Trump demographic. The voters that will go into his column and stay there if there is an indictment. His campaign will instantly turn from explaining why he is better than Trump to explaining why his results won’t be the same as Trump. And that’s a losing hand.