Could DeSantis lose Florida in the 2024 primary? Here's what his poll swing could mean.

Florida voters are on a roller coaster ride in their support of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid, which raises the question whether DeSantis can win the state’s March primary and capture the nomination when Republicans select a nominee in July 2024.

DeSantis, an Ivy-league educated former Naval officer, scored a 19-point reelection victory last year and then began the presidential polling season in February with a 31-point lead in the Florida Republican primary, according to a University of North Florida poll. 

But since then, the campaign’s theme song could very well be Frank Sinatra’ ballad “That’s Life,” riding high one month but then the hitting the lowest of lows the next.

Three polls by different organizations that followed UNF, had DeSantis behind his one-time mentor, former President Donald Trump.

The descent among voters began during this year’s legislative session when DeSantis, in the middle of pushing a hard-right, culture-war infused agenda, went on a national tour to promote a book that introduces him to the country, “The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.” 

An Emerson College Poll taken in March during the book tour found Florida voters favored Trump by three points.

After Trump was indicted in New York in April for falsifying business records, he opened a 28-point lead on DeSantis in a Florida Atlantic University poll.

FAU political science professor Kevin Wagner said he found Trump’s support to be “durable and consistent.”

Things have since settled a bit with Trump’s lead falling to eight points in an early May survey, and the two pulling even with each other, at 38% support among Florida Republicans in a Victory Insight poll taken the last week of the month.

It's unclear how news of a second Trump indictment breaking out of the classified records case will impact the polls.

What the polls mean to partisans

How you decipher the state of the race by reading poll numbers depends on where you stand, politically.

Supporters say DeSantis has a good story to tell and his campaign will be fine. Opponents see personal and policy flaws that will doom his effort.

“DeSantis will not be the Republican nominee if Donald Trump is still in good health next year. Trump will successfully mock DeSantis and diminish him,” predicted Jon Ausman, a former member of the Democratic National Committee from Tallahassee who managed and consulted campaigns for nearly 40 years before he retired.

Ausman describes a DeSantis instigated feud with the Walt Disney Co., that threatens a Florida icon and the state’s biggest tax revenue generator, as the work of an “active-negative” politician – someone with an agenda but who can’t disengage or adapt.

Examples of an "active negative," said Ausman, are former presidents Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson for their inabilities to navigate setbacks in the Watergate scandal and Vietnam conflict.

"Active positive" politicians would be former governors Bob Graham and Jeb Bush, who pursued their objectives with “a sense of joy” to overcome opposition.

Nonetheless, DeSantis supporters in calls to talk radio, letters to newspapers, and in social media posts counter that the more voters hear about DeSantis’ legislative accomplishments the better his campaign will do.

DeSantis has emerged as a chief antagonist of Democrats by championing policies to empower parents, restrict voting access and abortion, and oppose the federal government on health care, education, and immigration policies.

Evan Power, the Florida Republican Party Vice Chair and the current leader of the Leon County GOP, said bold leadership on those policies have made DeSantis the most recognized governor in the country.

“The more that the Free State of Florida is talked about, the more people will be exposed to the progress we have made here in Florida,” said Power.

'Our time has come': Why DeSantis could become the first Florida man to be president

Currently, there are 11 candidates vying for the nomination, but DeSantis and Trump are the only ones pulling in double digits – with the two routinely splitting more than 76% of the Florida vote.

Despite having more than 10% of the number of delegates needed to win the nomination – making it the third largest delegation to the GOP convention, and the fourth largest to the Democrats’ – a Floridian has never been a major party’s presidential nominee.

Barney Bishop, the former CEO of Associated Industries of Florida, a business group that lobbies state government as “the voice of Florida business,” said DeSantis is the most formidable candidate the state has ever put up to claim the White House.

“Our time has come, and I think that he is the right one,” said Bishop.

Bishop said he voted for Trump previously but now stands with DeSantis, a native Floridian. He refers to Trump as a carpetbagger who moved here to escape persecution in New York.

In DeSantis, he sees the same ideology and governing philosophy practiced by Trump. DeSantis though, said Bishop, can talk about and put in practice those policies in a way that does not alienate suburban women and independent voters.

“President Trump has shown that he can't attract those kinds of voters and if we're going to win the presidency again, we're going to have to have somebody that has the conservative philosophy of Donald Trump, but has the communication skill to be able to talk to people ... and lead our country without turning people off,” said Bishop.

How Florida has shaped GOP primaries of the past and why it may not this year

Although DeSantis has plenty of time to get his campaign on track to harvest Florida’s 125 delegates in March, history, political scientists, and campaign veterans say it is unlikely.

Candidates with numbers at this time in the race like Trump’s since 1996 have gone on to win the nomination. In a Quinnipiac poll , Trump has a 31 point lead on DeSantis among voters nationwide.

That’s not to say Florida can’t be decisive in who wins the nomination.

The late U.S. Sen. John McCain used a 2008 Florida primary victory as a launching pad to a string of Super Tuesday primary state victories that ended a challenge from former New York Gov. Rudy Giuliani.

Four years later, a Florida victory enabled Sen. Mitt Romney to separate from the pack after three different candidates won the first three GOP contests.

That’s not expected to happen next year for DeSantis. The consensus among experts is that Trump’s support is solid, and it will be very difficult for DeSantis to chip it away.

“They are both in the same lane, as they say, going after the same small sliver of the population, so that will make it interesting,” said Charles Zelden, political science professor at Nova Southeastern University.

Plus, next year the Florida primary comes late – 22 other states will hold caucuses or primaries before March 19.

Was DeSantis' commanding election a true mandate or paper tiger?

Tara Newsom, a social media and behavioral science professor at St. Petersburg College, suggests DeSantis’ exposure as a presidential candidate revealed him to be a paper tiger – someone unable to withstand a credible challenge despite a stunning reelection victory and subsequent bending of the Florida Legislature to his will.

DeSantis posted a stunning landslide victory over a vastly under resourced challenger and a Democratic Party that had spent a generation self-destructing, said Newsom.

“You really have to ask was his reelection truly a mandate of Florida voters,” said Newsom, who is also the director of the College’s Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement.

“The reach of his political posturing hadn’t been revealed in that campaign. He hadn’t yet waged a scorched earth campaign against Disney. He hadn’t stripped schools of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The NAACP and ACLU hadn’t issued travel advisories for people of color. And most Floridians didn’t understand how he’s reduced transparency and we now do government business in the shadows and not the sunshine,” said Newsom.

The talk of Tallahassee

Whether DeSantis’ policies will earn him his party’s nomination for President next year or land him back in Tallahassee as a lame duck is the talk of Tallahassee.

A recent Friday morning WFLA radio, where Tallahassee conservatives tend to gather, took calls for nearly an hour on whether DeSantis should remain in Tallahassee or move on and up to Washington.

Listeners waited on hold for nearly 20 minutes to join the discussion, according to the show’s producer.

“Surprising to me were the numbers who believe it serves them, and the State of Florida, for Gov. DeSantis to serve out his second term. I would say the consensus was for him to serve until 2026, then run for the White House in 2028. The overwhelming majority think he is an exceptional executive for Florida and think he would be a great President,” said host Preston Scott.

The discussion is ongoing in social media and can be heard in coffee shops and restaurants.

Barbara DeVane, a former high school teacher and longtime lobbyist for the National Organization for Women, vehemently disagrees with DeSantis on healthcare and education policies.

Like the WFLA listeners, she wishes he wasn’t a candidate in 2024.

“However, since Governor DeSantis has fantasies of being president, it’s great that people are getting a first-hand account of why, I believe, voters will see to it that Ron DeSantis will never get near the White House,” said DeVane.

James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow on him Twitter: @CallTallahasse

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Polls show Florida isn't a sure thing for DeSantis or Trump. Here's why