Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leads former President Donald Trump by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in a new poll of potential Sunshine State Republican presidential primary voters.
DeSantis scored a 52%-to-27% lead over Trump among registered Republicans surveyed, with Nikki Haley and Mike Pence far behind in the low single digits.
In a hypothetical #FloridaMan-a-mano matchup, DeSantis performs even better, clobbering Trump with 59% compared with just 28% for the former president.
Michael Binder, director of the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, which conducted the survey, said he wasn’t surprised that DeSantis is dominating Trump just months after scoring a landslide reelection victory.
“It is interesting to see how his lead jumps ... once you winnow the field to two,” Binder said. “DeSantis is much better compared to Trump at consolidating votes if the field were to narrow.”
Trump, who announced his presidential comeback run last year, has recently been chalking up leads over DeSantis in national polls of Republicans.
DeSantis is expected to challenge Trump for the GOP nod, likely announcing his run sometime in the spring.
DeSantis this week unveiled an aggressive right-wing agenda that he plans to push through the Republican-dominated Florida legislature.
But the poll offers warning signs about those proposals, showing they remain broadly unpopular among the same voters that delivered a sweeping landslide to Republicans last fall.
The GOP plan to ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a much stricter rule than the current 15 weeks, is opposed by 75% of Florida voters, compared with just 22% who back it.
DeSantis’ move to allow unfettered concealed carry of guns is even more unpopular, with just 21% supporting it.
Powerful majorities of Sunshine State voters in the poll also support a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational use of marijuana and oppose DeSantis’ plans to halt efforts to increase diversity in public colleges and restrict discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
“Many voters we spoke to are not so thrilled about some of DeSantis’ most recent proposals in his war on ‘woke’ culture,” Binder said.
The poll of 1,452 voters was conducted Feb. 25 through March 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.57 percentage points.
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