In a hypothetical Presidential matchup, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis leads former President Donald Trump by 8 percentage points among Florida voters.
The polling figures showcased in a USA Today-Suffolk University poll released on Wednesday (September 21) show a sharp reversal from January’s polling when Trump led DeSantis by seven percentage points.
Forty-eight percent of Florida’s Republican voters prefer DeSantis to be the GOP’s Presidential nominee compared to 40 percent who felt the same about Trump.
The USA Today-Suffolk polling from January, the figures were nearly identical but in reverse.
At the time, DeSantis only had 40 percent support compared to Trump’s 47 percent.
It’s been widely speculated that Trump and DeSantis will mount 2024, yet neither of the two has confirmed these ambitions. Trump, however, has hinted at a third bid for President, saying that the decision boiled down to when he would make the announcement.
Yet, according to the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, David Paleologos, DeSantis’s popularity in Florida may not translate to other states, highlighting that it did indicate a shift.
“But it is one data point suggesting a shift in preferences from GOP voters away from Trump and toward DeSantis from Republicans who know both potential combatants quite well,” he told USA Today.
In Florida, DeSantis also performs better than Trump in other hypothetical match-ups. Most notably, DeSantis has an eight percentage point lead (52 – 44) over Biden among all respondents, compared to Trump, who only led Biden by three percentage points (47 – 44).
