Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is now seven points ahead over former president Donald Trump according to a new poll that weighs up potential candidates for 2024 presidential primaries.
The YouGov poll is the first survey looking at the 2024 election cycle – as well as being the first since February 2016 to suggest that Trump’s dominance over the GOP is weakening.
The poll suggests 42 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents now prefer DeSantis over Trump to be the party’s 2024 standard-bearer.
However, neither have announced their candidacy for the upcoming election cycle.
Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now prefer Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over former President Trump to be 2024 GOP presidential nominee
A YouGov poll found that 42 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they would prefer DeSantis over Trump to run in 2024
Just 35 percent of those surveyed support Trump – who reigned until he lost against Joe Biden in 2020.
However, those who considered themselves ‘strong Republicans’ 45 percent were still more likely to support a third presidential run for Trump.
DeSantis seemed to fair better among Republican ‘leaners.’ In that group, 45 percent preferred DeSantis compared to 21 percent wanting Trump.
Of those who responded identifying themselves as ‘not very strong Republicans,’ 38 percent said they would rather see DeSantis, compared to 31 percent who desired the former president.
Just 35 percent of those responding said they would prefer Trump over DeSantis to run in 2024
The poll of 1,500 Americans was conducted in the three days following last Tuesday’s midterms and included 413 people who self-identified as Republicans and those leaning towards the GOP.
Last weekend, the former president derided Florida’s governor as ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ before releasing a statement taking credit for DeSantis’s rise to prominence.
On Tuesday, Trump then threatened to share private information about his potential primary challenger ‘that won’t be very flattering’ if he chooses to run against him.
‘I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly,’ said Trump. ‘I know more about him than anybody — other than, perhaps, his wife,’ he added.
The results are a complete reversal compared to a YouGov poll from October that was conducted three weeks before last week’s midterms.
On Tuesday, Trump then threatened to share private information about his potential primary challenger ‘that won’t be very flattering’ if he chooses to run against him
Last weekend, the former president derided Florida’s governor as ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ before releasing a statement taking credit for DeSantis’s rise to prominence
Then, 45 percent of Republicans appeared to support a third run by Trump at the White House, according to YouGov.
Just 35 percent picked DeSantis who ended up securing a 19-point re-election victory.
The majority of candidates supported by Trump suffered humiliating defeats.
In the February 2016 poll when Trump was last beaten, a poll conducted by NBC News/Wall Street Journal saw Texas Senator Ted Cruz with a 2-point lead over Trump.
The results are a complete reversal compared to poll conducted in October which saw DeSantis polling 10 points behind Trump
Eyeing the Florida governor as his most formidable foe within the Republican Party, the former president has sought to keep DeSantis in his place, often noting the role his endorsement played in lifting the relatively obscure congressman to the leader of one of America’s largest states.
DeSantis, for his part, has long praised Trump and mimicked his style, but has notably declined to put aside his own White House ambitions.
In the clearest sign of tension, the two held dueling Florida rallies in the final days of this year’s midterm elections. At his event, Trump unveiled his new derisive nickname for DeSantis, calling him Ron DeSanctimonious.
The simmering rivalry between the Republican Party’s biggest stars enters a new, more volatile phase after the GOP’s underwhelming performance in what was supposed to be a blockbuster election year.
DeSantis, who won a commanding reelection, is increasingly viewed as the party’s future, while Trump, whose preferred candidates lost races from Pennsylvania to Arizona, is widely blamed as a drag on the party.
It leaves Trump in perhaps his most vulnerable position since he sparked the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
As he moves forward with plans to announce a third presidential bid on Tuesday, Trump is turning to a playbook that has served him through decades of personal, financial and political turmoil: zeroing in on his enemies’ perceived weaknesses and hitting them with repeated attacks.
In the days since Tuesday’s election, Trump has made racist remarks about Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, another potential Republican presidential candidate, saying his name sounds Chinese. He’s blasted coverage from Fox News, which, like much of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, has shifted its tone on Trump in recent days. But much of his vitriol is directed at DeSantis, a sign of the threat Trump perceives from the Florida governor.
In a lengthy statement, Trump knocked DeSantis as an ‘average REPUBLICAN governor with great Public Relations’ and voiced fury that DeSantis has not publicly ruled out challenging him.
The approach recalls Trump’s strategy in 2016, when he cleared a field of nearly a dozen rivals with a scorched-earth approach that included insulting his then-rival Ted Cruz’s wife’s appearance and claiming that his father may have played a role in John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Cruz later became a top ally in Congress.
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