Florida Governor Ron DeSantis might have done an excellent job taking care of Florida’s problems, but GOP voters are still largely uninterested in having him as the GOP’s 2024 presidential candidate, a recent poll of voter thoughts on the primary contenders shows.
That poll, conducted by NBC News, shows that Trump has 51 percent of the GOP primary voters on his side as of late June. DeSantis, meanwhile, is down to 22 percent. The other bickering nobodies running to slake their thirst for attention, Pence, Christie, and Haley, are at 7, 5, and 4 percent, respectively.
The main issue of note, as regards those results, is that DeSantis has lost significant ground while Trump has gained it since April. During April’s poll, which occurred shortly after Trump’s first indictment, DeSantis was at 31 percent and Trump at 46 percent. So, since then, Trump has jumped up by 5 percent while DeSantis has crashed by nine percentage points. So, Trump’s lead is now 29 points instead of just fifteen.
When the 2024 primary race is reduced to just DeSantis and Trump, Trump gets the support of 60% of those Republican primary voters, while DeSantis gets just 36%. So, it looks like most of the voters currently going for the various pro-DC Swamp candidates like Haley and Pence go for DeSantis if reduced to choosing between Trump and DeSantis while Trump picks up a couple of points from elsewhere. Evidence for that comes from NBC: “In that two-way matchup, Trump overperforms among “very conservative” GOP voters, those without college degrees and Republicans 65 and older. DeSantis, meanwhile, overperforms among “moderate/liberal” Republicans, those with college degrees and those ages 18-49.” It also shows that even if all the others dropped out, DeSantis probably couldn’t win the primary.
Importantly, those results coincide both with DeSantis becoming more visible on the national campaign trail and Trump’s second indictment, this one on charges related to his handling of classified documents. That could show both that voters are less interested in DeSantis now that they have seen more of him and that they view Trump’s indictment as a political witch hunt rather than guarding “our democracy.”
Still, it also shows that Trump’s hold on the GOP isn’t total. With almost half of GOP voters preferring someone else, there is still significant room for someone like DeSantis to start winning states during the primary and clinch the nomination. However, while DeSantis is still the top contender compared to the other candidates, that looks less likely than in April.
Additionally, the results of both the April and June polls show that the “Make America Great Again” and “America First” agendas are still far more popular than regime ideology with voters. Whereas Pence’s tame view of politics other than religious issues like abortions, Haley’s regime ideology, and Christie’s…whatever he is for, all just get a few percentage points, Trump and DeSantis have nearly three-quarters of the GOP voters in support of their either MAGA or MAGA without Trump campaigns.
There’s still a long ways to go before the primary elections start. But, as of now, the regime’s attacks on Trump and DeSantis’ general lack of charisma or good campaigning so far have made this former President Trump’s race to lose, even if the GOP establishment and its Chamber of Commerce backers hate him.
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