He isn’t dead yet.
ABC News is out with a poll that has some subtly encouraging news for Ron DeSantis as he preps to announce his presidential campaign.
Two previous polls had Donald Trump at 58% and 62% with DeSantis at 21% and 16%, respectively.
Those polls put DeSantis on roughly the same standing as Robert F. Kennedy Jr, with Trump pulling similar numbers to Joe Biden.
But the newest poll shows a more competitive race. Trump pulls at 43% with DeSantis at 20%. It’s still a massive gap, but a 23-point gap is better than a 46 point one. It’s also the first poll in over six weeks to have Trump under 50%, indicating that there may actually be a primary race after all.
DeSantis is also more comfortably sitting in second place in this newest poll.
Previously he was only ahead of Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Mike Pence by single digits. His PAC had begun airing ads against Haley and even gave her their own Trump-style nickname, hoping it would catch on (“Nervous Nikki”).
But Mike Pence pulls the bronze here at a paltry 2%. Haley only gets 1%, while no other candidate polls above a percentage point.
We’ll keep tracking for you to see if this poll represents a general trend or serves as an outlier. Previously, Ramaswamy was gaining momentum, seeing himself frequently tied with Haley.
It’s reasonable to wonder if ABC News was under polling supporters of candidates not named Trump or DeSantis. DeSantis has always done much better against Trump with head to head matchups.
But if this is a general trend, then DeSantis has a fighting chance. He’s expected to announce in two weeks. It’s likely DeSantis will be looking at subsequent polls and will aim to announce when and if a clear, upward trend presents itself.
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