President Trump’s hand-picked Florida gubernatorial candidate might have had a slightly better week than Brett Kavanaugh.

Something like six different polls, 12 Ouija boards and 38 “Magic 8 Balls” all agreed that Ron DeSantis is losing to Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. You know, the guy DeSantis calls a socialist.

Atta boy, Ron. Heck of a strategy you got there. Of all the many, many things that matter to the real lives of Floridians, you zoomed in on that one? Socialist?

If only it was working. Which apparently, it ain’t. So last week, DeSantis tossed out another label — anti-Semite — with erroneous new accusations that Gillum doesn’t like Israel or Jews.

Never mind that DeSantis is the dude emphatically endorsed by “Moscow” Matt Gaetz, Northwest Florida’s camera-loving Congressman who infamously took a Holocaust denier as his date to the State of the Union.

But hey, DeSantis is desperate for any sort of derogatory name to pin on his opponent, who stands to become Florida’s first black governor if elected. And since political strategists can’t use the sort of racial labels that might have been more commonplace back in the “good-ol’-days” in Florida, they’ve got to come up with something else to reduce an opponent like Gillum to a scary “other.” Hence you get socialist, anti-Semite and various other accusations of unfounded radicalism.

You know what they say — if you can’t beat ‘em, name-call ‘em.

The problem is, when Gillum stands up and speaks to average Floridians, he doesn’t sound like a socialist or an anti-Semite or a left-wing radical. He just sounds like a dad.

And as a result, most folks just plain like him.

Alas! Even in politics, humanity matters. Which is probably why the DeSantis strategy of cheap, reductionist, mean-spirited name-calling is blowing it for the future of Florida Republicans.

The Quinnipiac University poll released last Wednesday had Gillum up nine. It was a spike following multiple other polls that said DeSantis was losing. And according to the Tampa Bay Times, Gillum is performing especially well with women and independents, holding “double-digit leads” with both groups.

That’s big. Because the dopey DeSantis name-calling might have worked in a Republican primary where even Adam Putnam was branded a “liberal,” but it was still junk politics. Now DeSantis has to compete for all Floridians, which includes about 3.5 million independents. Even Republican-rich Escambia County’s “no party affiliation” voters have spiked to more than 20 percent this year. Between that and the lowly local Democrats’ 34 percent, registered Republicans are outnumbered. Even up here.

So the tactics that won in a Trump-tweet-tainted Republican primary are looking like a "yuuuge" disaster for the GOP in Florida’s general election.

My, what a departure from the decades of Jeb Bush-engineered dominance of the governor’s mansion.

Gillum’s momentum is swelling like hurricane storm surge. The president might have to coin the nickname “Dead-Weight DeSantis” if he ends up being the anchor that sinks Gov. Rick Scott’s senatorial ship as well.

Statewide, the political name-calling has already proven to be a losing strategy this year. Maybe DeSantis just aspires to be the Frank White of gubernatorial candidates. We saw how well White’s tactics of shallow, partisan name-calling worked in his failing GOP bid for state attorney general.

The saddest part about the goofy name-calling is that Republicans could do better. There are substantial criticisms of Gillum, including cash-funded vacations to private Costa Rican resorts with personal friends who are lobbyists.

To heck with "socialism." With any public official who does things like that, shouldn't taxpayers be more worried about “corruption”?

Andy Marlette is an editorial cartoonist and columnist for the Pensacola News Journal.