Before the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump last week, his biggest rival in the 2024 GOP Primary, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), was beginning to catch up to him in the polls.
In Iowa, as of June 7th, President Trump stood at an even 46% in the polls, with Gov. DeSantis at 24.7%, totaling a 21.7% lead.
Meanwhile, up in New Hampshire, the latest polling data places Gov. DeSantis 18 points exactly behind Trump, with the former standing at 23% to Trump's 41%. However, take this data with a grain of salt since these are the results as of May 17th.
Further down in South Carolina, Trump stood at 42.3% to DeSantis's 22%, a marginally wider lead than New Hampshire. The South Carolina poll is slightly more recent, with the data going up to May 25th.
Finally, here in the Sunshine State, DeSantis trails behind Trump at a measly 8 points, with Trump at 42% and DeSantis at 34%. There's something ironic about that, considering DeSantis blew Charlie Crist out of the water by almost 20 points in the 2022 midterms. Again, this data is outdated, with the most recent poll by American Greatness taken on May 9th.
Nonetheless, this speaks volumes about how close the 2024 Republican presidential primary contest is getting between Trump and DeSantis, with Trump's lead closing (at least in these four states) by ten or more points. At the end of May, Trump stood 30.8 points ahead of DeSantis in the national average of public opinion polls.
Even now, while Trump's indictment has rallied Republicans around him, his national average polling numbers as of June 10th have only increased by 1.5 points, from 30.8 to 32.3.
Just after the indictment, DeSantis received the endorsement of Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R), who praised the Florida Governor as "a strong conservative and principled leader" and "one of the few who never backed down in the face of adversity."
Are we seeing more and more voters reconsider the idea of DeSantis being the second choice for the Republican nomination?
