DeSantis support falls in new poll as campaign resets, Trump stays atop field
Mabinty Quarshie
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As Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) attempts to reset his 2024 presidential campaign, a new poll suggests he has his work cut out for him.
A Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday showed the governor slipping to 15% support among potential Republican primary voters, as former President Donald Trump continues to dominate the primary race at 58% support. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy landed in third place at 9%, with former Vice President Mike Pence behind him at 7%. All other candidates received 3% or less in the survey.
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Notably, Trump is leading DeSantis by 43 percentage points even as he faced a superseding indictment from special counsel Jack Smith over allegations he mishandled classified documents after leaving office and as DeSantis has attempted to reset a campaign that has faced negative headlines over its campaign strategy.
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Ramaswamy, generally considered a long-shot candidate, has seen his poll numbers rise six percentage points since mid-June while DeSantis’s poll numbers dropped five percentage points in the same period.
When Morning Consult began tracking Republican primary voters in December, DeSantis polled at 30% and Trump at 50%. But since then, DeSantis’s support has dropped by 15 percentage points while Trump’s support has increased eight percentage points despite the two indictments he’s faced this year.
In April, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg unveiled a 34-count indictment against Trump over a hush money payment scheme to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election. Then came Smith’s 37-count indictment in June over the classified documents, which then increased to 40 federal charges last week in the superseding indictment. The former president has denied any wrongdoing on any of the charges.
But he could face two more indictments over Smith’s Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigation and a Georgia investigation into allegations that Trump and his allies attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
DeSantis has faced questions over his retail politics awkwardness, his ability to convince voters to abandon Trump, and his campaign spending after his campaign fired 38 staffers recently.
Still, DeSantis has maintained that he is the only candidate who can credibly win back the White House during next year’s elections. In a hypothetical matchup, President Joe Biden would win over both Trump and DeSantis, the Morning Consult poll showed. Biden leads Trump 44% to 41%, a three percentage point gap. Biden leads DeSantis by six percentage points, 44% to 38%, in a hypothetical matchup, an indication that challenges DeSantis’s assertion he is the best candidate to defeat Biden.
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Trump also scores high in favorability with voters at 71%, as does DeSantis, who has a 63% favorability rating. Pence comes in third place with a 50% favorability, with no other candidate receiving higher than 50% after the former vice president.
The surveys were conducted July 28-30 and have a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.