Ron DeSantis finally gets some good news thanks to a new Wisconsin poll
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- Ron DeSantis got some good news thanks to a new poll of Wisconsin Republicans.
- According to the Marquette University Law School Poll, DeSantis is in a dead heat with Trump.
- Still: it's just one poll, and we'll want to see a pattern before getting too bullish on DeSantis' prospects.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis received some good news from a poll on Wednesday, with a Marquette University Law School Poll finding DeSantis and Trump are in a statistical dead heat among Wisconsin Republicans.
The finding is a strong showing for the Florida governor in a state that will be critical in the 2024 general election, but the fact this is even slightly newsworthy underlines how disastrous DeSantis' campaign has been thus far.
The poll surveyed 913 Wisconsin registered voters, including 419 Republicans and independents who lean Republican.
The poll found that among those Republicans and independents who lean Republicans in the state, Trump is at 31%, and DeSantis is at 30%. Given the poll's margin of error among Republicans of 6.5 percentage points, that puts the two in a statistical dead heat.
The even better news for DeSantis? The Florida governor has staked his campaign on the notion that he is more electable in a general election than Trump. In the early general election polling from Marquette, he's closer to President Joe Biden than Trump is: as of now, Biden holds a 2-percentage point lead over DeSantis, while the president has a 9-point lead over Trump in a hypothetical rematch in the state.
As for the rest of the 2024 GOP primary race, a chunk of Republicans (21%) have yet to decide whom they will support. As for the rest of the field, Vice President Mike Pence is at 6%, and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is at 5%. Former UN Ambassador Nikkie Haley and conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are tied at 3%. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was the only other candidate to register support at 1%.
The good news for DeSantis comes after a series of struggles for Trump's best-positioned challenger.
Before he entered the field, Trump successfully garnered more endorsements from Florida's GOP delegation in Congress. DeSantis' announcement was a bit of a mess. He has angered a key GOP group in New Hampshire, a headache that comes as his polling in the state grows worse there even as he stumps around more often. DeSantis' slipping has caught the attention of other hopefuls who aren't yet even in the expanding field, including Sen. Rick Scott, who would be the fourth Floridian to run for the Republican nomination.
Worst of all for DeSantis, Trump has maintained his gigantic lead in national polling even after becoming the first former president to be criminally indicted.
The Marquette University Law School Poll was conducted from June 8-13, 2023. The 913 respondents were a mix of 715 respondents selected from the Wisconsin voter registration list and 198 selected from the SSRS Opinion Panel. The overall margin of error is +/-4.3 percentage points. The Republican subsample margin of error is +/-6.5 percentage points.