Is Ron DeSantis done? His U.S. presidential bid is sputtering before launch

Ron DeSantis entered this year aiming to be the heir to Donald Trump. He's likelier to wind up as the next Scott Walker, if things don't turn around soon.

In other words: a superstar conservative governor of a swing state whose presidential aspirations crashed and burned before his campaign ever got off the ground.

"DeSantis is taking a bruising," Fox News host Jesse Watters said recently.

"It is a daily pummeling that [Donald] Trump is laying on this guy. How many more weeks and months is this going to sustain itself?"

That was weeks ago. Things have only gotten worse on multiple fronts: the bad polling, the donors getting skittish, the high-profile endorsements flowing toward Trump.

All this is before DeSantis has even announced he's running. But he's spent well over a year building a national podium for a campaign, giving the faithful viewers of Fox News everything they could conceivably ask for, assiduously courting the base voters who turn out in Republican primaries.

He's on the verge of banning transgender care for minors in Florida, even threatening to strip parents of their custody rights.

He's banned school instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation; with the original bill critics dubbed 'Don't Say Gay' and a new version that extends it to all grades. 

He's got the strictest immigration proposal in the country: a planned bill that makes it a felony to help undocumented immigrants, potentially threatening their family members. 

He's got a new abortion ban at six weeks of pregnancy. This is one year after he signed a 15-week abortion ban into law, and recently fired a pro-choice prosecutor who refused to enforce it. 

He's expanded gun rights, including permitless carry.

There are also book bans in school libraries and he's curtailed teaching about racial injustice in schools under the so-called Stop Woke Act.

He's feuded with Disney over wokeness, and with the Special Olympics over a vaccine mandate.

And what does he have to show for this? He's down about 25 points to Donald Trump in national primary polling and that gap is growing, not shrinking.