Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may deny that he is interested in running for president, but that isn’t stopping pollsters from including him as an option for the Republican Party’s 2024 nominee.
The most recent set of polls concerning the 2024 Republican presidential primary spells good news for DeSantis. While former President Donald Trump calls Florida home, the Sunshine State would go to DeSantis in a head-to-head presidential primary.
A Victory Insights poll shows that 51% of Floridians support DeSantis over Trump’s 33%. When the leanings of undecided voters were counted, DeSantis had 61% compared to Trump’s 39%. DeSantis also beat Trump across all four favorability metrics of popularity, likeability, enthusiasm, and strong supporters.
Florida is not the only place where DeSantis is giving Trump a run for his money. A WDIV/Detroit News poll released Tuesday shows the two statistically tied in the state of Michigan, with Trump at 45.2% and DeSantis at 41.6%. With 12.4% of voters undecided and a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, the Michigan Republican primary could go either way if it were held right now.
The Michigan bases of the two potential candidates are different in both ideology and education. Trump has the support of voters without a college education, while DeSantis’s support comes primarily comes from college-educated voters. Voters identifying themselves as Trump Republicans overwhelmingly support Trump at 70.7%. However, 21.4% of Trump Republicans, as well as 53.3% of self-identified classic Republicans, support DeSantis.
This trend of support for DeSantis at Trump’s expense is far from new. In June, I analyzed how DeSantis has more grassroots support in the state of New Hampshire than Trump. While in a statistical tie with the former president, DeSantis outright has the support of voters who tune in to Fox News and conservative radio outlets.
Voters keeping up with current events believe DeSantis is the best way to tackle the problems facing our country. Not only is this a great sign for DeSantis’s leadership abilities, but it is also indicative of the lack of faith surrounding Trump’s ability to keep his promises.
Don’t believe me? Listen to the voters themselves. Fox News interviewed multiple Trump supporters in Arizona who expressed a willingness to choose DeSantis over the former president. “At this point, [Trump’s] a little too polarizing,” a voter named Susan said. With the exception of one voter, everyone interviewed by Fox shared this sentiment to some degree.
The Republican Party may not have Trump as its leader in 2024, but the list of realistic alternatives is short. Not only is DeSantis the only candidate who can compete with Trump in the polls, but he is doing so consistently and across a variety of states.
DeSantis will likely continue to deny his interest in 2024 during his reelection campaign. He wants to focus on Florida and his constituents first, as a governor should. For now, time is Trump’s best friend because he is not beholden to the timeline of the 2022 midterm elections. Should Trump get ahead of DeSantis and announce his candidacy before November, he will be multiple steps ahead of the only man who can defeat him.
James Sweet is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
