One of my earliest political memories is an advertising campaign that ran across Michigan during the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary. Rick Snyder, an Ann Arbor businessman unknown to most of the state’s voters, was facing a host of rivals with big names and impressive political support. Awkward, geeky, and bookish—“one tough nerd”—Snyder didn’t run away from his persona. Instead, he bought a Super Bowl ad noting that he had begun reading Fortune magazine at age eight, graduated from the University of Michigan with three degrees by 23, and had a policy plan “so detailed that, well, it’s likely no politician could even understand it.” Snyder went on to win the governorship.

Thirteen years later, amid stories criticizing his likability and allegedly cringe-inducing videos of interactions with voters circulating on social media, the second-place candidate in the GOP primary for president is being attacked as too awkward to lead. Regardless of whether Florida governor Ron DeSantis—a Division 1 college baseball team captain and the only military veteran in the 2024 race—is actually stiff, the label has stuck. And so far, at least, DeSantis hasn’t embraced the portrayal or creatively justified it as an asset for the job he is seeking to fill.

The challenge facing DeSantis—and Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, and the array of GOP candidates running in the primary—is a difficult one. As polling from the New York Times points out, one of the attributes DeSantis scores lowest on relative to Trump is “fun.” The Times survey shows that national Republican primary voters view DeSantis as slightly more “likable” and significantly more “moral” than Trump, but the former president is still dominating DeSantis in the ballot test by 37 points. No other candidate cracks higher than 3 percent support.