DeSantis falling behind, but still won't directly attack Trump

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is trailing former President Donald Trump badly in the race for the GOP's presidential nomination, but he seems to be staying away from hitting truly hitting Trump where it hurts.

DeSantis gave a speech on Friday to the Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Washington, but it did little to boost enthusiasm for his candidacy.

In DeSantis' 30-minute speech, he didn't mention Trump by name once, a strategy that embodies most of his campaign. Where Trump has attacked DeSantis, the Florida governor has looked elsewhere and kept focused on Democrats.

While this strategy seemed advisable, it doesn't appear to be doing much to boost DeSantis's numbers.

FiveThirtyEight found that Trump has a 31-point lead on DeSantis as of last Friday which wasn't much different from the numbers at DeSantis' official campaign launch.

DeSantis has gained no ground on Trump, and if he wants to get back in the race, he may have to stop pulling his punches and go after Trump directly.