Just over a month into the official presidential bid of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his supporters are holding on to hope he can be competitive despite Donald Trump’s dominance of the 2024 Republican primary field.
“I think over time people are going to say, ‘There’s just too much chaos in Trumpworld.’ The chaos is only going to grow,” Hal Lambert, a New Hampshire Republican and former Trump-turned-DeSantis donor, told The Washington Post.
Unfortunately for Lambert, DeSantis’ greatest success to date is becoming both equally as unpopular as Trump and simultaneously less electable. It’s a fantastic feat given the notorious unpopularity of the twice-impeached, twice-indicted insurrectionist-in-chief.
In Civiqs tracking, both DeSantis and Trump hold a net -21 favorability rating. DeSantis has also skillfully raised his national profile to the point where only 9% of registered voters are “unsure” about him, while just 35% view him favorably compared to 56% who hold unfavorable views of him. Trump’s numbers are almost identical: 36% favorable, 57% unfavorable with 7% unsure. So much for “Trump without the baggage.”
In fact, the only real difference between the two is a matter of trajectory, with DeSantis on a steady downhill slide since mid-December, while Trump has actually rebounded slightly from his post-midterm dip.
In the Republican primary contest, Trump is still dominating DeSantis by nearly 30 points (52%-24%) in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate. The most charitable reading of the aggregate polling is that DeSantis has rebounded slightly since mid-May when Trump was trouncing him by roughly 35 points.
But a new NBC News poll out this week drew an especially bleak picture of DeSantis’ loss of altitude since spring. In a multi-candidate field, DeSantis has lost a net -14 points to Trump since April, with Trump now leading 51%-22% and every other Republican mired in single digits.
Of course, DeSantis’ goal has always been to make the race a one-on-one contest with Trump, yet the NBC survey still showed him significantly trailing Trump in a head-to-head, with Trump drawing 60% of GOP primary voters to DeSantis’ 36%.
None of the early state polling augurs well for DeSantis either:
- In Iowa, not a single independent poll over the last month shows Trump with anything less than a 15-point advantage over DeSantis
- In New Hampshire, every single independent poll in June has shown Trump with a 26-point lead or greater
- In South Carolina, independent polling over the last month has consistently shown Trump besting DeSantis by roughly 23+ points
One place where DeSantis is on the run is from the mouse. Mickey, that is. In Disney’s First Amendment legal challenge to DeSantis over the company’s right to criticize the governor’s policies, Disney is asking the judge for a July ’24 court date while DeSantis is seeking an August ’25 court date—well after the 2024 election.
It’s true that in a general election DeSantis sometimes matches up better than Trump against President Joe Biden. The NBC poll, for instance, found Biden beating Trump by 4 points, 49%-45%. But in a hypothetical Biden-DeSantis contest, the two are deadlocked at 47%.
DeSantis must make it past the primary to take on Biden, and all signs at this juncture point to a Trump nomination. Things could absolutely change by next February and surprises in the early states can still upend the Republican field. But to date, Republican voters are still on fire for Trump.
“Trump is the only politician I’ve ever gotten into politics for,” George Elicker, a 62-year-old from the Granite State told The Post. Elicker gave DeSantis a look but ultimately concluded he had betrayed Trump. “He doesn’t speak down to us,” Elicker said of Trump, “he speaks like an average Joe that you meet on the street.”
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