After a wave of controversies, including a criminal indictment and a lost civil suit, former President Donald Trump (R) has seen a massive increase in support. The most interesting poll data however, comes from Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to challenge the President, is now trailing President Trump by a large margin.
After surrendering himself before a Judge in New York and having a jury decide that he was liable for the alleged sexual assault of writer E. Jean Carroll, the former president has remained unshaken as displayed by a CNN town hall last week.
During the town hall, Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump on these recent controversies where he reiterated that his poll numbers, "went up."
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is expected to announce his presidential candidacy in the coming weeks, but may face a more steep challenge than he anticipates. A poll collected the opinions of 1,081 registered voters in Florida and was conducted by Mainstreet Research and the Department of Political Science and School of Communication and Multimedia Studies within the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at FAU.
Of the Floridians asked who they preferred for the Republican nomination, 69% said they still support Trump as the GOP nominee in 2024, and another 18% say they somewhat support him. When asked to pick between Trump and DeSantis in a hypothetical head-to-head primary election, 6 out of every 10 voters said Trump, and 3 out of every 10 said DeSantis.
When broken down geographically, Trump's margin of victory becomes more impressive with Southwest Florida Republicans backing Trump by 80% to DeSantis' meager 7%. Other populated areas like Tampa sided with Trump with 69% and 22% for DeSantis.
Although the state may have elected him by a landslide as governor, it appears that Floridians in this poll do not want to see DeSantis leave his post as the governor of Florida, which should make for an interesting primary if and when DeSantis announces his candidacy.
