In the early days of the 2024 presidential election, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was looking like the political dragon slayer – with former President Trump being the dragon, of course.
In fact, early polls split between a slight plurality for Trump and a slight plurality for DeSantis. Neither of them was tracking with more than 50 percent of the Republican primary voters – but, in terms of polling strength, Trump and DeSantis are the only ones that count at this juncture.
But the trend has not been going in DeSantis’ favor. Trump’s numbers have tended to move up, and DeSantis’s numbers down. Looking at the recent Morning Consult poll, they had Trump at 45 and DeSantis at 34 in January – an 11-point gap. In February, it was 48 percent for Trump and 30 percent for DeSantis – an 18-point gap. In early March, Trump moved over the 50 percent mark with 52 percent to DeSantis’ 28 percent – a 24-point gap. Later in March, Trump moved up to 54 percent, with DeSantis at 26 – a 28-point separation.
Looking at it one way, DeSantis only dropped 6 points over the past two months. On the other hand, it is a loss of almost 20 percent of his support
This is consistent with a recent history of frontrunners not doing well in the end. Most pundits use that history to evaluate DeSantis’ long-term chances – but they forget that it is Trump who is the early leader. What is past may not be prologue this year, however, since we have a very rare situation – a President attempting to seek a second non-consecutive term. That only happened once before – and that was Grover Cleveland in 1892.
The question is whether Trump is surging or DeSantis is slipping. Based on the Morning Consult poll, Trump seems to have gained more than DeSantis has lost.
Yes, it is much too early in the presidential campaign season to make any well-grounded predictions. DeSantis is not yet an official candidate. Trump has a gauntlet of sequential legal cases that are the political version of the trials of Hercules.
And as for DeSantis, he does not need to fight for the lead. In fact, he should not. A presidential campaign is more like a marathon than a sprint. You do not want to claim an early lead that would not be sustainable in the long run.
If DeSantis has a political Achilles Heel, it may be his seeming effort to compete with Trump for the Trump hardcore base – which I estimate to be between 15 to 20 percent of Republican primary voters. More about that in a later commentary.
So, there ‘tis.