Human Events podcast host Jack Posobiec discussed on Monday the polling numbers between former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with Richard Baris, Director of Big Data Polls. Posobiec mentioned that Trump is currently ahead of DeSantis, 52 percent to 32 percent respectively among Republican voters in Florida, which could be indicative of how the primaries will play out in 2024.
Posobiec mentioned the importance of the recent numbers in Florida, because it is Desantis’ own state, somewhere he should be doing very well. However, the numbers seem to suggest that Trump has a commanding lead over the governor. The host also noted that Baris’ polling numbers seem to be in line with CNN’s own polling number, with both suggesting that “Republican challengers to Donald Trump are having trouble winning their own states.”
Baris cut in by addressing a poll that had recently come out of Florida Atlantic University, which “showed a tighter race but Trump was still up. They had a 30-point margin. And it was like sixty-thirty, and I was thinking maybe I didn’t poll into, you know, enough, so maybe something happened almost a week after we came out of the field.”
He added that he was excited to get back in the field to see if there really was something that had changed, and he found that there actually was a larger margin between Trump and DeSantis. He said: “Donors call me all the time and ask what I think about stuff, and there are calls going out because people were talking about the poll, and [some were] saying, ‘You know, don’t worry, when he’s indicted, things will change.’”
Baris then addressed the potential that Trump’s polling numbers might decrease if or when he is indicted, which could represent a significant swing in who may become the Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election. He said that there were some Floridians last month who said that they liked Trump, but that they don’t “want him to be president.” However, this seems to have changed over the past month.
Baris continued: “Republicans are starting to look at Ron DeSantis as some kind of vehicle by whatever you want to call it, to unite the party. You know, however Republicans view the world, they’re starting to look at him as the vehicle to take out Trump and they don’t like it. So his negatives are rising even in his own state.”
He concluded that DeSantis fans relying on Trump’s indictment adversely affecting his numbers is “a flawed strategy, because you’re going to end up with a huge chunk of Republicans who will refuse to vote in the general election.”
