Ron DeSantis Leads Donald Trump by 23 Points in Republican Poll

By Staff, Agencies 

In a new poll regarding potential Republican nominees for president in 2024, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, led Donald Trump by a whopping 23 points.

Republican and Republican-leaning voters dealt the significant blow to the former president’s ego in a survey carried out by USA Today and Suffolk University and released on Tuesday.

There was good news for Trump in another poll covering the same time period, by Morning Consult, which gave him an 18-point lead over DeSantis. Furthermore, the polling website FiveThirtyEight still shows Trump in the lead in most surveys.

Nonetheless, David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told USA Today: “Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump.”

That much has been clear in the rise of DeSantis, a former US military lawyer and hard-right congressman who has pursued distinctly Trumpist hardline, theatrically cruel policies as governor of Florida, in particular on immigration and education.

Last month, DeSantis marked a crushing re-election victory with a confidant speech, declaring his state “where woke goes to die” to chants of “two more years”.

Trump declared his third consecutive run for the Republican nomination shortly after the midterm elections.

But he has shown precious little momentum, particularly after elections in which most of his endorsed candidates for key state posts and in Congress went down to defeat, contributing to a disappointing Republican performance.

Trump is also in extensive legal jeopardy, over his attempted election subversion, the retention of White House records and his business affairs.

USA Today said its poll showed that among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, enthusiasm for another Trump run is receding.