New Poll After Announcement Reveals Big Concerns for DeSantis

Former President Donald Trump has had a substantial lead in the polls for the GOP primary for some time now, as a slew of people have jumped into the race to challenge him. As I noted ten days ago in looking at the Harvard Harris poll, that not only had Trump up, but it also showed him beating Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, the American people thinking Biden was not mentally fit and rejecting a lot of the Democratic narratives.

That was before the announcement by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. As I said at the time, I thought his use of Twitter Spaces was a great nod to new media, but unfortunately was filled with technological problems, so that became the media takeaway. Of course, it beat the heck out of Joe Biden’s announcement, a pre-recorded video released when everyone, probably including him, was asleep.

So what do the polls look like in the wake of DeSantis’ announcement on May 24? I will make the obligatory statement I make for every poll at this point: there’s still a long time until primary ballots are cast.

There have been a lot of stories about DeSantis in the media since the announcement. But according to the latest Morning Consult poll, most of what Republicans heard about DeSantis was likely to be positive.

Potential Republican primary voters were 34 points more likely to hear something positive than negative about DeSantis (51% to 17%) following his campaign announcement, similar to the buzz in advance of his campaign launch.

They’re not hearing a lot about other people like Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC).

But the rest of the Morning Consult poll is not great news for DeSantis.

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— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) May 31, 2023

DeSantis is still 34 points behind Trump, with Trump at 56 percent and DeSantis at 22 percent.

As with any poll, you have to compare it to itself. On May 24, it was 57 for Trump and 21 for DeSantis, according to the Morning Consult numbers. So if they thought that they were going get a bump off the announcement, DeSantis didn’t get that. The numbers are essentially the same. It should be noted the numbers did get a little closer over the month before the announcement. Donald Trump, Jr. was not shy about pushing back on DeSantis and tweeting “Poll: No Bump for DeSantis from Announcement as Trump Still Leads by 34 Points.”

Another aspect of the poll that has to be concerning for DeSantis is how he’s doing against Biden. Part of what he’s pitching is that he would be more attractive to independents and that he might therefore have a better chance of beating Joe Biden than Trump (even though the liberal media is painting them both as “literally Hitler”). But the Harvard Harris poll showed Trump beating Biden by seven points, and DeSantis’ numbers were only even against Biden or Harris. The Morning Consult poll has Trump even with Biden and DeSantis down by three points.