Ron DeSantis, who recently won re-election as governor of Florida with a resounding majority, has overtaken Donald Trump to become the early favourite to earn the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2024, according to a new survey.
According to a YouGov survey issued on Friday evening, Republican and Republican-leaning respondents favour DeSantis over former President Trump by a margin of 42-35.
The remaining 23% of respondents either stated they weren’t sure or that they didn’t have a favourite.
The YouGov survey was conducted from Wednesday through Friday in response to the Republicans’ underwhelming performance in Tuesday’s House midterm elections.
Republicans captured 20 of the 28 US House seats that were up for grabs in Florida, while DeSantis defeated Democratic competitor Charlie Crist by over 20 percentage points in the governor’s race.
Like DeSantis, Senator Marco Rubio was re-elected by a sizable majority and did well in numerous regions that were traditionally considered Democratic strongholds, like Miami-Dade County.
In contrast, a number of the most well-known candidates Trump backed—including Arizona’s Blake Masters and Pennsylvania’s Dr Mehmet Oz—lost their elections.
According to a Twitter survey conducted by conservative media source Breaking911, which has 1 million followers, roughly 70% of participants think DeSantis should be the Republican Party’s leader in the wake of Tuesday’s election results.
In contrast, 23.7% voted for Trump.
Just two weeks before the midterm elections, a YouGov survey revealed that Trump was still the favourite 2024 candidate among Republican voters. DeSantis was defeated by the previous president 44–26.
After the huge movement in voter opinions, Trump could be feeling the heat on the political front. On Thursday, he mocked DeSantis, taking credit for his accomplishments and called him an “average Republican governor with outstanding PR.” Later, he made fun of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin by claiming credit for his win in the previous year’s election and said that his name “sounds Chinese.”
