Former president Donald Trump continues to lead the pack in national polling, but Florida governor Ron DeSantis is gaining ground in key states that will matter in a 2024 presidential primary, should they both run. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that only 49 percent of Republicans who are likely to vote in the 2024 GOP primaries would back Trump if the primary elections were held today. Twenty-five percent of GOP voters would back DeSantis in the primary. Given that he was a very popular president among Republicans (at least before the January 6 riot), the fact that Trump doesn’t reach 50 percent support among primary voters indicates that voters may be tired of the former president’s grousing about the 2020 election allegedly being stolen and may be ready for new blood in the GOP.
Things look even less rosy for Trump on the state level. Three weeks ago, a poll found DeSantis leading Trump among Republicans in New Hampshire, the first state to hold a primary. The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, found that 39 percent of likely Republican primary voters would back DeSantis while 37 percent would back Trump. While DeSantis’ lead is thin, the fact that he polls ahead of Trump while having not (yet) announced a presidential run is an indicator of the party’s mood. Accordingly, a July 15 poll from Florida found that DeSantis trounces Trump 61 percent to 39 percent in the Sunshine State. In Michigan, Trump holds only a three percentage point lead over DeSantis among GOP primary voters, 45 to 42 percent. For the second year in a row, a straw poll at Colorado’s Western Conservative Summit found that DeSantis edges out Trump, this time 71 percent to 67 percent. In May, a straw poll found that Wisconsin Republican Convention attendees support DeSantis over Trump 38 percent to 32 percent. The winds seem to be shifting, and they may be moving in the direction of the Florida governor.
It’s not just Republican primary voters who like DeSantis’s policies. Rich Lowry recently pointed to a poll by the American Federation of Teachers as evidence of the fact that “the education positions set out by Ron DeSantis are widely popular.” His positions against CRT, teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation to children in K–3, banning trans-identifying males from competing in girls’ sports, and giving parents more of a say in their children’s educations are winning issues for the governor. While DeSantis’s education policies may anger coastal liberal elites and members of the legacy media, many voters clearly favor them.
DeSantis has embraced a variety of policies that target key issues of the culture wars raging throughout the country. In June of 2021, DeSantis signed into law a bill banning trans-identifying males from participating in girls’ sports. That same month, DeSantis signed a bill mandating that state colleges and universities conduct annual evaluations of “intellectual freedom” and “viewpoint diversity” in order to guarantee that students are exposed to a variety of ideas, including those that challenge their beliefs. How many moderate to conservative parents across the country are fed up with or afraid of the leftist indoctrination their children get while they struggle to pay for that expensive university education? In March of this year, DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, banning the teaching of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to kids in kindergarten through third grade. While the Left made hay about this, misleadingly naming it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, 61 percent of voters in a national poll agreed with the bill once they found out what it entailed. Also in April, DeSantis signed the “Stop WOKE Act,” which protects Floridians in the workplace and in education from kindergarten through graduate school from being indoctrinated by woke ideology including critical race theory, which is considered unlawful discrimination under Florida law.
The Florida governor’s climb to national prominence happened for a reason. He is what the Republican Party needs right now: a conservative governor with populist undertones who is unafraid to unabashedly fight the culture wars. And he doesn’t carry the endless political baggage of the former president. Trump should watch his back. Assuming both he and DeSantis run in 2024, Trump will be in for some serious competition.