A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll showed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is rapidly catching up with the ex-president Donald Trump in anticipation of the 2024 presidential race. In just the last month, DeSantis moved up 11 points to reach 28 percent of the American vote.
Conversely, Trump dropped nine percentage points to 46 percent. Although the previous president still had a significant lead, the new poll showed that does not look promising for the third-term candidate.
Florida real-estate developer and GOP donor, Mel Sembler, sits on the coalition’s board. But last week he told CNN:
‘I think people are getting tired of his controversies all the time.’
Co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, Mark Penn, pointed out that which has become more obvious. Trump could lose:
‘Month after month DeSantis has been rising and now he is cutting significantly into Trump. If they both run, this will be quite a race and Trump could well lose.’
The Florida governor was a featured speaker at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting in Las Vegas this weekend. He said:
‘Florida really is showing a way out of this morass and this mess, but you got to be willing to do it and you got to be successful in implementing it and in times like these, there is no substitute for victory.’
Trump intended to announce his campaign run after big congressional wins, but that fell apart when the GOP lost the Senate and barely clung to the House. The former leader of the free world’s reading of his speech announcing his 2024 presidential run was lackluster and failed to inspire voters.
The GOP has been trying to pin down how much power the 45th president still controls. And the Republicans also wanted to see whether the ex-president would be the best potential candidate.
The Grand Old Party promised a “red wave” that ended up looking more like a splash of catsup on the wall. Instead, the Republicans were left with a few majority votes in the House and the total loss of the Senate after the midterm elections.
In the past month, the former commander-in-chief’s favorability ratings dropped five percentage points from 49 percent to 44 percent. However, the ex-president still beat DeSantis in a general election, 44 percent to 42 percent.
DeSantis won the governorship with a 19-point margin of victory. His opponent Representative Charlie Christ’s (D-FL) loss showed that Florida has been rapidly becoming a red state. There was not one Democratic state office-holder after the midterms.
Fifteen percent of respondents in the poll said that the Florida governor came out on top. By comparison, 20 percent of the poll’s voters agreed that Trump was the “biggest loser”in the elections.
As far as competing with the Dems, DeSantis came out even with President Joe Biden. If the election was held today, the Florida governor would win 43 percent of the vote.
But a day is a week in political time, so two years is unfathomable. Still, Trump and DeSantis have been edging for a clear lead in the 2024 presidential election.
The Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and the Harris Poll collaborated on this weighted demographic poll. It was conducted online from November 16 through 17 among 2,212 registered voters.
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
Christie writes Gloria Christie Reports & Three White Lions Substack newsletters and a Three White Lions podcast available on Apple, Spotify, etc. She is a political journalist for the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery (in progress). Find her here on Facebook. Or at Three White Lions her book on Amazon Kindle Vella and the Gloria Christie Three White Lions podcast on Apple, Spotify, etc.
