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After watching awkward videos of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/ron-desantis-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Ron DeSantis</a>, Derek Guy had a horrifying realization.

Guy, a fashion writer known as the “Menswear Guy” to his large following on social media, had noticed people on X, formerly known as Twitter, making fun of the Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful for throwing off weird vibes on the campaign trail. Some of these moments have been captured on video, as things tend to be during a presidential campaign: DeSantis struggling to make small talk with voters; bursting into strange paroxysms of wide-mouthed laughter; appearing to sugar-shame a child drinking an Icee at an Iowa fair.

“What’s your name?” DeSantis asked a voter in a recent <a href="https://twitter.com/PoliticsSteady/status/1659625197115174912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1659625197115174912%7Ctwgr%5E0aec6f8630a5fcba8f6bde6ca02be3571e430e3d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanityfair.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F08%2Fron-desantis-most-awkward-moments" target=_blank>clip</a> from a New Hampshire diner.

In another <a href="https://twitter.com/iarnsdorf/status/1685131065269084160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1685131065269084160%7Ctwgr%5E0aec6f8630a5fcba8f6bde6ca02be3571e430e3d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanityfair.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F08%2Fron-desantis-most-awkward-moments" target=_blank>video</a>, from a party after the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner, DeSantis stands ramrod straight, taking gulps of beer and checking the time on his phone and telling potential voters that normally he would already be asleep.

As he sought to connect with voters and donors, critics said DeSantis had resembled — to quote a couple of posts — “a robot put together from scrapped spare parts from Disney’s The Hall of Presidents” or “an extraterrestrial in a skin-suit trying to learn to be human.”

But when Guy, the menswear writer, watched a video of DeSantis cycling through four different facial expressions in about three seconds during a news conference, he saw something even more disturbing.

“Oh, God,” he remembers saying to himself. “That’s me.”

The governor’s anti-charisma — his apparent struggles to make small talk, his propensity for letting a smile fall too quickly from his face — reminded Guy of himself at parties. Or the time he had no idea what to say after a fan of his fashion writing recognized him at a tailoring shop.

“It was exactly like those DeSantis moments,” he said. “A normal human being would understand how to light up your face, how to engage, how to say the right thing. But DeSantis doesn’t have that. And I definitely don’t have that.”

Guy is not the only awkward American who has identified with DeSantis as he has emerged as the Awkward Candidate.

“Like Ron DeSantis, I spend every day trying to act like a human,” said Michelle Witherspoon, an environmental consultant in California.

“Every time I watch the videos, I cringe,” said Kate Ecke, a therapist from New Jersey who recently forgot to bring identification when picking up her child at summer camp and subsequently “really weirded out” a counselor by offering to show her C-section scar as proof of motherhood. “But I’m cringing because I’ve been that person.”

“It’s extremely relatable to me,” said Audrey Kamena, an incoming freshman to Yale University who said she once called her high school history teacher “Mom” and still thinks “about it every night before bed.”

Alex Whitlock, a stay-at-home dad and a “Never Trump” Republican from West Virginia, found himself relating to DeSantis after reading an article that mentioned that the governor made people uncomfortable with his “propensity to devour food during meetings.”

“I don’t always have an appropriate sense of when to eat or not eat,” said Whitlock, who also said he rarely knows when he’s supposed to shake someone’s hand.

There have been rare cases where the Awkward Candidate managed to make it to the White House. Richard M. Nixon’s ability to make small talk was, according to New York magazine, “a talent at which he is as naturally gifted as, say, the late Harpo Marx.” (Harpo was the one who didn’t talk.) Calvin Coolidge<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/mitt-romney-john-kerry-and-more-painfully-awkward-politicians" target=_blank> once said</a> that he was “as much interested in human beings as one could possibly be, but it is desperately hard for me to show it.”

Still, awkwardness is not the kind of relatability a politician necessarily wants. It’s safe to say the DeSantis campaign was hoping their man would be defined by attributes such as toughness or youth.

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“Before he ran for president, he was this abrasive governor, always fighting with reporters and giving off an impression of being extremely confident,” said Joseph Coll, a native Floridian who is now in Arizona getting his law degree. “Now he’s like a sad puppy, and it’s surprising that he actually feels relatable to me.”

Before law school, Coll used to work as a recruiter for a health-care company, a job that often required him to try to “be normal” in front of potential clients.

“I was terrible at it,” he said. “I definitely came across as a DeSantis.”

If you’re “a DeSantis,” the campaign trail is no place to hide it. The never-ending rope line can test the skills of even the most socially adept politician, let alone somebody who doesn’t naturally light up a room.

“Someone asked me the other day, ‘Is it true that Jeb would hand out turtles?’” said Tim Miller, a former spokesman for Jeb Bush, another Florida governor turned presidential candidate. “It was true! He’d hand out these toy turtles as an awkward way of trying to connect with people.”

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Bush could be open about his struggles with the “performative” nature of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/presidential-candidates-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">running for president</a>, Miller said, admitting publicly that he considered himself an introvert. “It landed with certain people,” Miller said. “But in this political era, it certainly isn’t a benefit.”

Case in point: Miller says the moment that has come to represent Bush’s failed effort — his famous plea for a New Hampshire town hall audience to “Please clap” — was actually “pretty well received” in the room as a self-deprecating joke. But when the moment got clipped and shared endlessly on social media, it was weaponized against his so-called low-energy campaign.

A candidate — or at least a person — who embraces their awkwardness might be better off than one who doesn’t, according to Henna Pryor, author of the forthcoming book “<a href="https://amzn.to/3sarjOV" target=_blank>Good Awkward: How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become the Bravest You</a>.” Pryor said that, when researching her book, she found studies that showed a “direct correlation” between expressing awkwardness and the perception that a person is “trustworthy, likable, more generous and, surprisingly, more confident.”

But for that to happen, she said, the awkward person actually needs to “acknowledge the cringe.”

“His problem is he never owns it and names it,” Pryor said of DeSantis. “If he did, it would highly improve his likability.”

Demetrius Freeman

When it comes to political people such as DeSantis, the question of likability has to do with a lot more than how deftly they “own” their awkwardness. There are plenty of people who both relate to DeSantis and find him detestable for his politics.

“If I shared his politics, maybe I would find it a little more likable,” said Guy, the menswear writer.

“If his polices weren’t so abhorrent, it would be more endearing,” said Coll, the law student.

“It’s all part of what I consider a negative personality,” said Whitlock, the Never Trumper stay-at-home dad. “I can’t tell where the awkwardness that I relate to ends and the malicious figure begins.”

“Given the decision between voting for him and getting a Pap smear from a girl I went to high school with,” said Ecke, the therapist, “hand me the paper gown.”

Even potential supporters such as Kamena, the soon-to-be college freshman, worry that DeSantis’s struggles might be a problem for him.

“Sometimes it gives me a little hope that I can be in public policy someday and be given a little bit of grace,” she said. “Though maybe he isn’t receiving much grace …”

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He is receiving plenty of ridicule. The rival Trump campaign — who <a href="https://twitter.com/politicoalex/status/1690499487133806592?s=20" target=_blank>reportedly</a> paid a plane to fly a sign that read, “Be likable, Ron!”— and the campaign stumbles have become a running gag for the satirical newspaper <a href="https://www.theonion.com/poll-finds-ron-desantis-candidate-voters-could-most-ima-1850687509" target=_blank>the Onion</a>, whose headlines include, “Poll Finds Ron DeSantis Candidate Voters Could Most Imagine Drinking Beer Alone.”

The Awkward Candidate label might prove hard to shed, once it sticks. This summer, DeSantis made headlines for the kind of slightly off-putting exchange that probably would have passed under the radar if not for his reputation for maladroit chitchat. While visiting a fair in Iowa, he asked a child what she was drinking. She told him it was an Icee.

“That’s probably a lot of sugar, huh?” he responded. “Good to see ya.”

“I feel like there have been 800,000 times that I’ve said the equivalent of that to someone,” said Scott Shapiro, a Yale professor who dislikes DeSantis’s politics. “And while I understand where he’s coming from and can relate, it only confirms my feeling that I should not run for president.”

Excellence in Feature Writing, Society for features Journalism

Brandeis University, B.A. in American Studies

Ben Terris is a writer in The Washington Post's Style section with a focus on national politics.

Ben Terris

Ron DeSantis is seen as the Awkward Candidate. Some voters can relate.

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Republican U.S. presidential candidate Ron DeSantis campaigns at the Iowa State Fair, in Des Moines

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Awkward Americans see themselves in Ron DeSantis

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