- Republicans in Florida prefer DeSantis to Trump for 2024 White House tickets.
- This is the opposite of a similar poll in January.
- The findings are part of a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll.
Florida Republicans have one of their favorite Floridians at the top of their next White House ticket.
According to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll post Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis led former President Donald Trump 48 percent to 40 percent in the hypothetical 2024 presidential primary on Wednesday.
That’s the opposite of a similar poll in January, when Trump defeated DeSantis 47 percent to 40 percent.
“Donald Trump falling behind in the race against another Republican is a huge change,” David Paleologos, director of the Center for Political Studies at Suffolk University, said in a statement.
Given that during the 2016 primary, Trump handily defeated Senator Marco Rubio in his own home field, handily beating Wednesday’s poll by 46 percent to 27 percent, Paleologos said.
The results are for just one state, but inject extra heat into one of the most talked-about topics in American politics: whether DeSantis will run for president with Trump, who pushed him in 2018 The top spot in the Florida gubernatorial primary.
DeSantis did not say whether he has the White House in sight and is preparing to run for re-election in Florida on Nov. 8. He will face Democrat Charlie Crist, who recently resigned from Congress and was a Republican from 2007 to 2011.
This game seems promising for DeSantis.This USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll DeSantis is expected to win re-election by 7 points, 48 percent to 41 percent.
While respondents said they thought Florida’s economy had deteriorated, the poll found DeSantis’s lead by a wide margin — just 37% of voters Indicates Florida’s economy is “excellent” or “good,” down 10 percentage points from January.
Half of voters said they were “worse” than they were four years ago, though the poll did not assess whether voters blamed the DeSantis or Biden administrations for the economic woes. It did find that DeSantis has a higher approval rating than Biden in Florida, 53% to 42%.
If DeSantis had a big lead over Crist, it would be a huge turnaround for the Republican governor. Just four years ago, he and Democratic challenger Andrew Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee, entered the governor’s mansion by just half a percentage point.
Former President Donald Trump.
AP Photo/Joe Maiorana, File
Trump’s approval ratings are falling in his new hometown
Polls suggest Trump’s approval ratings may be waning, at least in the Sunshine State. The researchers surveyed 500 voters by telephone between September 15 and 18.
Trump calls Florida his permanent home, but — as is his habit — he spends his summers at golf courses in Bedminster, N.J., and Trump Tower in New York City.
The FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in August and found classified documents that Justice Department officials said Trump was not allowed to have. On Sunday night, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that he arrived at Mar-a-Lago “to check out the scene.”
While Trump’s legal troubles keep him in the news, DeSantis also regularly makes national headlines. The most recent was last week when he directed national resources to transport immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
The move appears to have caught the attention of Trump, who has made immigration restrictions one of his signature issues as president. On Saturday, Trump shared an insider interview with Republican operative John Thomas, who said DeSantis’ political career would be doomed if he ran against Trump.
DeSantis’ frequent national headlines, massive fundraising and regular clashes with the Biden administration have led many politicians to speculate that he will run for the White House. Still, conventional wisdom is that if Trump were to run for the White House again, he would be the nominee, something he has been teasing for more than a year.
Polls have found that Trump does have an edge among some voters in Florida. He leads DeSantis 53 percent to 36 percent among voters earning less than $50,000 a year, and 57 percent to 27 percent among voters who didn’t go to college.
It’s unclear if Trump can win against President Joe Biden nationally, even though polls have found that Floridians still prefer him to the current president.
This USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll It was found that Trump would defeat Biden in Florida 47% to 44% in a hypothetical matchup. If DeSantis were to confront Biden, the gap would be even wider, at 52% to 44%.
