Governor DeSantis is more popular than President’s Biden & Trump in Florida
Bottom Line: This story comes with the disclaimer that what I’ll discuss is a temperature check, not something that’s worth reading too much into. But it’s very interesting as far as temperature checks go, nonetheless. As you’re likely aware Donald Trump won Florida twice by margins far larger than DeSantis’s win (.4%). That makes the data coming out of polling firm Cygnal, all the more impressive. In the wake of the 60 Minutes hit piece on Governor DeSantis and Publix, Cygnal polled on people and institutions within Florida and found that only Publix is more popular than Ron Desantis. They also found traditional news media is the least approved of entity within Florida. Among the key findings of Floridians...
- DeSantis’s approval rating is 55%, Biden’s 49%, Trump’s 47%
It’s notable that in the same poll, with the same pool of participants, DeSantis beats Trump by 8-points. It’d appear DeSantis has taken the Republican leadership mantle from Trump in Florida, at a minimum, already. DeSantis’s performance head-to-head with Biden is also instructive. There’s not much of a contest there either. And here’s why... The contextual questions tell the story. Here are DeSantis’s approval ratings on the issues of the day:
- Vaccine distribution: 72%
- Pandemic policy: 60%
Floridians give DeSantis far higher ratings than either Biden or Trump on those issues. And to that end, the 60 Minutes hit piece backfired bigtime. 66% of Floridians view Governor DeSantis more positively after the hit piece than before. Ironically, had 60 Minutes not attempted the hit piece, many Floridians may not have been aware of the extent of the Governor’s role in shaping Florida’s vaccine distribution. Once people became aware, they overwhelmingly supported DeSantis’s approach. And this likely contributed to traditional news media’s 39% approval rating in Florida. 16% lower than Governor DeSantis, 8% lower than Donald Trump and the lowest of any category sampled. If you believe in freedom, civil liberties and truth – there's a lot to feel encouraged by in Florida. Floridians have their eyes wide-open.
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