In new, national polling that was completed on August 14, a majority of respondents expressed an unfavorable view of Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, who is currently running for president in his party’s primary. Though he was previously considered a contender with solid prospects, his standing has consistently sunk, with Donald Trump remaining the front-runner even amid his now four criminal cases.
The polling is from the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the latest numbers, 53 percent expressed either a very or somewhat unfavorable view of DeSantis, while only 29 percent expressed a very or somewhat favorable perspective. Those figures mean that unfavorable perspectives on the governor outpaced favorable views by 24 percentage points. In polling from October of last year, the difference — though unfavorable perspectives still led — was only 10 percentage points. By April, it reached 14 percent as the gulf between those viewing DeSantis positively and those distancing themselves from the governor kept growing.
Trump was in somewhat the same rhetorical boat in the survey figures from AP-NORC, with those harboring an unfavorable perspective reaching 62 percent of the overall total in the most recent numbers and those viewing Trump favorably at 35 percent.
Though Trump has characteristically claimed otherwise, his standing against Joe Biden in surveys that measure voters’ perspectives on an expected rematch of 2020 in next year’s race is actually relatively close. In recent polling from YouGov and The Economist on the national level, for instance, Biden led slightly among registered voters, and Trump led slightly among all respondents, though it’s clear from a variety of recently emerging data that most Americans are not enthusiastic about Trump potentially running for president again. In the AP-NORC polling, 69 percent said they do not want Trump to run for president again in 2024 — which he is now doing.
It’s not yet clear how the criminal cases against Trump could affect his campaign in terms of the potential of him actually taking office. All four of his cases would eventually need to go before a jury under current expectations.
