Club for Growth Poll Shows DeSantis Leading Trump in Several Key States

THE VILLAGES, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 03: President Donald Trump speaks with Florida Gov. Ron De
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Paul Bois

A Club for Growth poll shows Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leading former President Donald Trump in several key states.

Conducted between November 11-13 after the midterm election, the poll surveyed voters in New Hampshire, Iowa, Georgia, and Florida to discover that Ron DeSantis now leads Donald Trump in all four.

In Iowa, DeSantis has gained 11 points since August while Trump has fallen 15 points (48 percent to 37 percent). In New Hampshire, DeSantis has climbed seven points, while Trump has fallen eight points since August (52 percent to 37 percent). DeSantis also leads Trump by 26 points in his home state of Florida (56 percent to 30 percent) while leading him by 20 points in Georgia (55 percent to 35 percent).

A CWS Research poll for the Texas GOP also found that DeSantis leads Trump by 11 points (43 percent to 32 percent). The same poll released on October 23 showed Trump leading DeSantis by nearly 20 points (46 percent to 29 percent).

Whether or not this means that DeSantis will have the nomination (or even if he will actually run for president) remains unknown, but poll after poll has shown that support for the Florida governor has been surging since his impressive midterm victory in which he won the Sunshine State by a whopping 20 points, flipping the notoriously blue-controlled Miami-Dade County in the process.

Surveying 1,500 U.S. adult citizens between November 9-11, a recent YouGov poll also found that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leads the former president by seven points among overall Republicans (42 percent versus Trump’s 35 percent). Among voters who identified as “strong” Republicans, Trump leads DeSantis by two points (45 to 43 percent), while DeSantis leads Trump among “not very strong” Republicans (38 to 31 percent) and those who lean Republican (45 to 21 percent).

Since the midterm election in which Republicans failed to take back the U.S. Senate and will likely win the U.S. House by narrow margins, the former president has heavily criticized DeSantis, referring to him as “Ron DeSanctimonious” and accusing him of showing disloyalty.

“Ron came to me in desperate shape in 2017—he was politically dead, losing in a landslide to a very good Agriculture Commissioner, Adam Putnam, who was loaded up with cash and great poll numbers,” he wrote.

“Ron had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win. I didn’t know Adam so I said, ‘Let’s give it a shot, Ron.’ When I Endorsed him, it was as though, to use a bad term, a nuclear weapon went off,” he added.

The former president also attacked Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (another 2024 prospect), saying he would not have won the election without the former president’s support.

“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” Trump wrote on social media on Friday morning.

Youngkin issued no direct response, saying he does “not call people names.”

“I didn’t see it… You all know me. I do not call people names. I really work hard to bring people together, and that’s what we’re working on here,” Youngkin told reporters.

Trump has also said he plans to make an announcement on November 15, which many believe will be his declaration to run for president in 2024.

“I’m going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump said at his political rally in Ohio last week.

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