A little more than two months ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis entered the presidential race. Some thought he could be the candidate to finally unseat Donald Trump as the GOP leader.

But after the race edged closer slightly in polls, Trump has opened a big gap, even as the former president faces federal charges.

Now, some wonder whether DeSantis can ever topple Trump.

“A lot of us who were interested in the DeSantis candidacy had expected him to take off like a rocket,” Republican political consultant Liz Mair told Spectrum News. “And I think more what we've seen is possibly him taking off more like a small Cessna plane at a little regional airport, not necessarily ascending to great heights, kind of buzzing along.”  

Of course, it’s still early. The first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses are still roughly six months away.

DeSantis’ campaign says it’s raised $20 million in the six weeks since he announced. That will help fund a get-out-the-vote operation in Iowa.

“What DeSantis, I think, is trying to do here, at least at this point, is trying to remain under consideration, to remain relevant,” said Dennis Goldford, a professor of political science at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. “And that's about all he can do at this point.”

DeSantis sees talking about LGBTQ+ issues as key to his candidacy’s success, even in ways many consider divisive at best.  

That was the case in an ad DeSantis’ campaign shared on Twitter which uses highly charged and confusing imagery to attack Trump’s stances. (The video has since been removed.)

The nation’s leading group representing LGBT conservatives blasted the video.

“The themes behind it, you know, smacked of a latent homophobia that it's really not something that's quite honestly tolerated in American society or in the Republican Party of any of these days,” said Charles Moran, president of the Log Cabin Republicans.

Richard Grenell, a former Trump administration official and the first openly gay Cabinet official of any presidential administration, called the video "undeniably homophobic."

The video didn’t come up in an interview Monday on Fox Business, but asked about trailing Trump in polls, DeSantis said the campaign was building get out the vote operations in key states.

“We got a lot of work, but we’ve had a very, very favorable response and we’re going to keep building off that momentum,” he said.

Meanwhile, a flyer has also reportedly circulated in Iowa praising Trump on marriage equality and trans rights. In many places in Iowa, that is seen as having the opposite effect: getting people to not support Trump. It is unclear who is sending out the flyer; a Des Moines firm listed as being connected with the ad did not respond to a request for comment.

In response, DeSantis has defended the ad as “totally fair game.”