Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seemed to start his presidential campaign on shaky ground. He announced his campaign from a buggy Twitter Space on May 24, more than six months after a campaign announcement from former President Donald Trump.
However, DeSantis has been rising where it counts, according to an internal poll shared with Axios on Monday.
Between May 30 and June 1, pollsters at WPA Intelligence surveyed 655 likely caucus-goers in Iowa, home of 2024’s first caucus. The pollsters, funded by the DeSantis donors from the Never Back Down PAC, found some promising results for the governor.
According to the poll, DeSantis has all but closed the gap with Trump.
DeSantis boasts support from 43 percent of likely caucus-goers. Meanwhile, Trump is sitting at 45 percent support.
In other words, DeSantis is trailing by only two points. That’s well within the poll’s 3.8 percent margin of error.
Plus, 12 percent remained undecided. So, the Iowa caucus is still anybody’s game, according to this poll.
What’s more, DeSantis has risen measurably since the last poll. In early May, the governor was polling at only 39 percent among likely caucusgoers in the Hawkeye State. By comparison, Trump was polling 14 points ahead, at 53 percent. Back then, only 8 percent of voters were undecided.
However, the new poll also revealed some problems for DeSantis. It also comes with some limits, due to its undisclosed methodology and its unusually small sample.
For example, DeSantis is sagging in polls against all 10 Republican candidates. He polls best in a two-horse race against Trump.
According to this month’s poll, DeSantis has won only 29 percent of caucus-goers asked about the full field.
This month, DeSantis is splitting much of his vote with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (7 percent), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (6 percent), former Vice President Mike Pence (4 percent), and businessman-turned-author Vivek Ramaswamy (4 percent).
Meanwhile, Trump is still polling at 39 percent against all other Republican candidates.
Last month’s poll painted a similar picture. Back then, DeSantis was polling at 24 percent, with Haley nabbing 10 percent.
Naturally, Team DeSantis is characterizing the GOP primary as a two-horse race.
“The Republican presidential caucus is a two-person race between Governor Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump,” two advisers to Never Back Down told the New York Post. “Despite heavy media attacks against Governor DeSantis, along with some rallying to Donald Trump following the New York indictment, DeSantis’ ballot share has grown in the past month while no other candidate exceeds single digits.”
In other words, DeSantis has money and momentum. Now, his team is working on winning the third M: media coverage of the GOP primary.
The Horn editorial team