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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is now seven points ahead of former President Donald Trump according to a new poll weighing potential candidates for the 2024 presidential election.
The YouGov poll is the first poll to look at the 2024 election cycle — and also the first since February 2016 to suggest Trump’s dominance over the GOP is waning.
The poll suggests that 42 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents now prefer DeSantis over Trump as the party’s flag bearer in 2024.
However, neither of them has announced their candidacy for the upcoming election cycle.
Republicans and Republican Independents Now Prefer Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to Former President Trump as GOP Presidential Candidate in 2024
A YouGov poll found that 42 percent of Republicans and Republican independents said they would rather elect DeSantis than Trump to run in 2024
Only 35 percent of those polled support Trump, who ruled until he lost to 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 better among Republican leaners. In that group, 45 percent preferred DeSantis compared to 21 percent who wanted Trump.
Of those who responded, identifying themselves as “not very strong Republicans,” 38 percent said they would rather see DeSantis, compared with 31 percent who wished the former president.
Only 35 percent of respondents said they would rather see Trump than DeSantis run in 2024
The poll of 1,500 Americans was conducted in the three days following Tuesday’s midterm elections and included 413 people who identified themselves as Republicans and those leaning toward the GOP.
Last weekend, the former president mocked the Florida governor as “Ron DeSancimonious” before releasing a statement taking credit for DeSantis’ fame.
On Tuesday, Trump then threatened to share private information about his potential primary challenger “which will not be very flattering” if he chooses to act against him.
“I think if he runs, he could really hurt himself,” Trump said. “I know more about him than anyone else—except maybe his wife,” he added.
The results are a complete turnaround compared to an October YouGov poll 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 into him
Last weekend, the former president mocked the Florida governor as “Ron DeSanctimonious” before releasing a statement claiming credit for DeSantis’ fame.
Back then, 45 percent of Republicans appeared to support a third run by Trump in the White House, according to YouGov.
Only 35 percent chose DeSantis, who took a sweeping victory in Florida just a day before the state was ravaged by Hurricane Nicole.
The majority of Trump-backed candidates suffered humiliating defeats.
In the February 2016 poll, when Trump was last defeated, a poll conducted by NBC News/Wall Street Journal saw Texas Senator Ted Cruz leading by 2 points over Trump.
keep an eye on Florida governor as his most formidable enemy within the Republican Party, the former president has tried to keep DeSantis in place, often noting the role his endorsement played in elevating the relatively obscure congressman to the leader of one of the largest states from America.
DeSantis, for his part, has long praised Trump and mimicked his style, but notably refused to put aside his own White House ambitions.
In the clearest sign of tension, the two Florida dueling rallies held in the final days of this year’s midterm elections. At his event, Trump revealed 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 disappointing performance in what should have been a blockbuster election year.
The results are a complete reversal from the poll taken in October, which found DeSantis 10 points behind Trump
DeSantis, who won an impressive reelection, is increasingly seen as the future of the party, while Trump, whose preferred candidates lost races from Pennsylvania to Arizona, is widely seen as a drag on the party.
It leaves Trump in arguably his most vulnerable position since he sparked the violent U.S. Capitol uprising January 6, 2021.
As he continues to plan to third presidential bid On Tuesday, Trump turns to a playbook that has served him through decades of personal, financial and political turmoil: to zoom in on the perceived weaknesses of his enemies and attack them with repeated strikes.
In the days since Tuesday’s election, Trump has made racist comments about Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, another potential Republican presidential candidate, who said his name sounds Chinese. He’s beamed Fox News coverage, which, like much of… Rupert Murdoch’s Media Empire, has changed his tone towards Trump in recent days. But much of his vitriol is aimed at DeSantis, a sign of the threat Trump perceives from the Florida governor.
In a lengthy statement, Trump called DeSantis an “average REPUBLICAN governor with great public relations” and expressed anger 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, which included insulting the appearance of his then-rival Ted Cruz’s wife and claiming that his father may have played a part. played in John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Cruz later became a top ally in Congress.