DeSantis has the wine-track donors — and that’s not a bad thing
Tiana Lowe Doescher
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While Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) may have launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination as being more of a populist culture warrior than focusing on the economy, he started his first quarter of fundraising winning over wine-track donors.
Of the $20 million DeSantis brought in from his May launch through June, half came from voting precincts that voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the 2020 election, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Furthermore, only 14% of that total came from small-dollar donors, the smallest share of any other major GOP competitor.
NO SPECIAL TAX BREAKS FOR BLUE STATE REPUBLICANS
While we don’t have the crosstabs of DeSantis’s donors, we do have them for his polling. Take the latest YouGov poll of the field, which shows Trump leading with 48% of the national primary vote and DeSantis in second with 22%. Trump commands 57% of the lowest-income voters polled, whereas DeSantis scores just 10%. On the flip side, DeSantis has 27% support from six-figure earners, while Trump’s support falls to 41%.
For education, check out Emerson’s latest poll, which gives Trump 59% of support nationally among primary voters, while DeSantis has 21%. Trump dominates 73% of those who have only attended high school. DeSantis earns the support of 35% of college graduates, while he beats Trump 37.5% to 32.5% among postgraduates.
Rather than worry about these numbers, DeSantis ought to lean into their implications, especially as they pertain to the economy. Despite Biden’s decision to claim victory over inflation, the economy remains the most important subject in the 2024 election by every available poll. Trump is practically a Democrat when it comes to the economic matters the next president will have to reckon with, be it Social Security reform or appointing the next Federal Reserve chairman. High earners — the “wine track,” to use jargon that I usually hate but fits here — are already gravitating toward DeSantis. Reiterating their priorities, including restoring price stability and fiscal sanity, may not be a bad strategy.