New Poll Reveals That GOP Gov. DeSantis Is Leading Trump In The State Of Florida With 59% Approval Rating

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While all the focus in the media has been on former President Trump amid his indictment in New York State, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis remains popular in their home state of Florida. 

Though DeSantis has not announced a 2024 presidential run, many polls have the two men vying for the top spot on the Republican ticket. 

According to the South Florida SunSentinel:

In the Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey released Tuesday, DeSantis’ approval rating in Florida was at 59%, up 4 percentage points from a poll from just before the November 2022 election. DeSantis defeated Democrat Charlie Crist by 19 points.

In Florida, where Trump is also a resident of Palm Beach, DeSantis had a 44% to 39% lead over the former president among registered Republican voters in a GOP primary matchup.

The Mason-Dixon poll of 625 registered Florida voters was conducted from March 27 through March 30 and has a margin for error of 4 points.

National polls have shown Trump surging ahead of DeSantis in the days following the news of Trump’s possible indictment by New York DA Alvin Bragg.

The SunSentinel cited a Fox News poll that “showed Trump as the main choice of 54% of GOP primary voters, with DeSantis in a distant second at 24%.”

A Quinnipiac University poll, also from last week, gave Trump a 47% to 33% lead over DeSantis.

A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released Saturday was the first to survey respondents following Trump’s indictment on Thursday in Manhattan on charges relating to an alleged payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels.

In that poll, Trump led DeSantis by a 57% to 31% margin in a one-on-one race. In a survey including other candidates, Trump leads DeSantis 52% to 21%. 

Political pundits speculate that the Florida governor will throw his hat into the ring for the 2024 presidential election prompting attacks from Trump and Trump-aligned groups.

What is the goal? Do they want to deter DeSantis from running?

MAGA Inc. began running television ads last week attacking DeSantis’ voting record as a member of Congress on issues like Social Security.

“Think you know Ron DeSantis? Think again,” the narrator asks. “In Congress, DeSantis voted three separate times to cut Social Security.”

“The more you see about DeSantis, the more you see he doesn’t share our values. He’s not ready to be president,” the narrator states.

Is the group trying to convince the voters that he’s not ready to be president or DeSantis?

Fox News reports that DeSantis’ GOP rival in the Florida Republican gubernatorial primary, Adam Putnam, used the same line of attack. Fact-checkers deemed it “misleading and an exaggeration of DeSantis’ voting record in Congress.”

There are a lot of uncertainties facing Republican voters at this point in the game. Primaries begin a little less than a year from now in states like Alabama and Arkansas.

The first Republican presidential primary debate will take place in Milwaukee in August 2023.

The RNC is sticking with recent tradition and holding the national convention in the same city in the summer of 2024 with 10 to 12 debates leading up to the convention.