DeSantis Pulls Record-High 2024 Support After Midterms

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has seen a surge of support for a potential presidential bid since the midterm elections, Morning Consult/Politico tracking surveys show, as a number of Republicans distance themselves from former President Donald Trump — blaming him in part for the GOP’s underperformance in the Nov. 8 contests.

DeSantis’ 2024 support surges after midterms

• A record-high 33% of potential Republican primary voters said they would vote for DeSantis if the 2024 Republican presidential primary were being held today, up from 26% in a survey conducted ahead of the midterm elections.
• Trump still leads the hypothetical 2024 contest, with 47% support among the GOP electorate. The figure is virtually unchanged from the previous survey, but marks a 10-percentage-point decline from a high reached in mid-August after the House’s Jan. 6 committee hearings and the FBI’s raid of his Mar-a-Lago resort.
• Just 5% of the GOP’s electorate said it would back former Vice President Mike Pence in 2024, marking his lowest level of support in 17 surveys conducted since November 2020.

Trump looks more vulnerable than ever

Following the midterms, a handful of Republicans have sought to distance the GOP from Trump, blaming his presence on the political stage and elevation of controversial candidates he supported for the party’s underperformance in this year’s elections. DeSantis, on the other hand, scored a major electoral victory in Florida, which some GOP insiders are interpreting as a Trump-esque aptitude for stoking base turnout — but without alienating voters more closely aligned with the middle.

The data shows that Trump, who is poised on Tuesday evening to make what he’s promised to be a “very big announcement” from Palm Beach, is clearly still in the driver’s seat for 2024. But, he looks more beatable than he has before, leading his would-be challenger by just 14 points — comfortably the smallest margin measured so far in Morning Consult tracking.

Fewer voters want Trump or Biden to run in 2024

• While Trump remains popular with 79% of Republican voters (similar to his favorability rating ahead of the midterms), 61% say he should run, down from a 71% high in August.
• The majority of Democratic voters (55%) say Biden should run for re-election. The figure has dropped 4 points since September, and is down from a 66% high in early March.

The latest Morning Consult/Politico survey was conducted Nov. 10-14, 2022, among 842 potential Republican primary voters, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.