For someone who spends so much time attacking the supposedly lousy credibility of mainstream polling and the media, it surely sounds like Donald Trump spends a lot of time keeping up with the latest releases from these sources.
He remains seemingly furious at the prospect of Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis running for president, although DeSantis hasn’t even announced an actual campaign. The clincher, though, is that DeSantis is consistently either close to Trump or ahead of him in polls of the potential primary field. Last year, DeSantis won another term by a margin of nearly 20 percent in the same year that candidates aligned with Trump nationwide for posts as governor and Senator lost, helping provide Democrats with continued control of the Senate and a hold on key gubernatorial posts. Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania — all these states have Democratic governors heading into 2024. And recent polling from Quinnipiac University found DeSantis behind Trump by just single-digits, although other surveys have shown Trump leading by a bigger amount.
“So interesting to watch FoxNews cover the small and unenthusiastic 139 person crowd in Staten Island for DeSantis, but stay as far away as possible from coverage of the thousands of people, many unable to get in, at the Club 47 event in West Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump complained on Truth Social this Tuesday. “I call FoxNews the RINO Network, and their DOWN BIG Ratings accurately reflect the name. If FAKE NEWS CNN was smart, which they’re not, they’d go Conservative & “All Trump, All the Time,” like in 2016, and become a Ratings Juggernaut.”” He sounds desperate.
Trump then turned his attention more directly on DeSantis. “Florida was doing GREAT long before Ron DeSanctus got there,” the ex-president miserably complained Tuesday. “People are fleeing from New York to Florida (and other places) because of high TAXES and out of control CRIME, not because of Governor (thank you President Trump!) DeSanctimonious. Rick Scott did great, and even Charlie Crist had very good numbers. SUNSHINE AND OCEAN, very alluring!!!” Again, DeSantis won re-election by a margin of nearly 20 percent after securing his first term with a margin of under a half of one percent! And Trump wants people to think he’s not actually that popular among the state’s residents? Although Nikki Haley, a former official in the Trump administration itself, has also announced a campaign for president, Trump doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the threat. Haley doesn’t seem even that interested in directly confronting Trump, although that’s who she’s ostensibly challenging. Unimpressively, Haley is generally polling in the single-digits.
