Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, has been having trouble keeping relevant in the race for the presidency in 2024. His ratings in recent surveys, nationally and statewide, have remained the same or fallen compared to new candidates entering the race.
With only seven months left until the primary election in New Hampshire, DeSantis may need to concentrate more on maintaining his second-place position. DeSantis’ ratings have stayed stable or declined nationally in recent surveys against several new arrivals to the campaign, some of whom have run to the left of him and Trump as the two Floridians vie to inherit the MAGA base that brought Trump to the White House in 2016. DeSantis’ numbers have been affected by many campaign recruiters who have campaigned to the left of him and Trump.
Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, has seen an increase in the number of potential voters in the early battleground state of New Hampshire who approve of him, while Ron DeSantis has seen a significant decrease in those who like him. Other contenders, such as Vivek Ramaswamy, have started exhibiting momentum in polls conducted in battleground states and nationally, which has further fragmented the field of Donald Trump’s competitors. As DeSantis’ campaign has gained a national presence, his national brand has not improved significantly among Republican primary voters or independent voters.
Echelon Insights conducted a study in June and found that DeSantis’ favorability rating among Republican voters had not changed since the previous month. On the other hand, his unfavorability rating among independent voters had climbed by three points from the previous month. During the same period, Republican supporters of South Carolina’s Tim Scott showed a nine percent boost in their favorability toward Republican Senator Tim Scott, while Ramaswamy’s favorability soared by an astounding fifteen percent nationally.
This performance may translate over to votes as well. Echelon polling found that when all of the contenders for the Republican primary were examined, support for DeSantis dropped from 19% nationwide in the group’s May poll to 16% in its June poll, but support for Trump remained stable, even after he was indicted for two separate crimes. According to other surveys, DeSantis is doing reasonably well against Trump. A DeSantis’ Never Back Down PAC representative cites a recent YouGov and the Economist survey of 1,359 voters, which showed that DeSantis had six points over Trump in net favorability among Republican voters.
In his appeal to voters, Ron DeSantis has focused on Donald Trump’s failure to win the popular vote in consecutive election cycles. However, a recent survey revealed that a generic Democrat presidential candidate had a three-point edge over a generic Republican candidate in a hypothetical fight between the two parties in 2024.
