Trump scandals don’t help his opponent DeSantis

Former US President Donald Trump continues to be the leading contender for the 2024 election from the Republican Party by a wide margin. His archrival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is lagging far behind. According to poll aggregator Real Clear Politics (RCP) on August 10, 54.2% of Republican voters are in favor of Trump. And only 15.1% are ready to vote for DeSantis. By comparison, a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on August 2—the day Trump was charged with storming the Capitol—took the ex-president’s approval rating at 47%, with DeSantis’ 13%. At the same time, DeSantis’ ratings were even higher earlier. On the day of the announcement of his participation in the presidential race on May 25, the Florida governor enjoyed the sympathy of 21.3% of Republican voters, while Trump had 53.9%, according to the RCP.

DeSantis is having difficulty running his own election campaign. According to Reuters, there have been two personnel changes at DeSantis headquarters in the past three weeks alone. On August 8, the campaign manager was replaced – instead of long-time associate of DeSantis, Generra Peck, who had worked in this post since the nomination of the Florida governor, his other assistant, James Utmyer, headed the headquarters. This and other changes, according to Reuters, unnerve DeSantis’ sponsors and embarrass his associates, who complain about the lack of a clear vision for the future.

Today, Trump is the undisputed leader of the Republicans, and only DeSantis can compete with him, notes Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute for the US and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. But DeSantis itself, it seems, has already exhausted its resource. According to the expert, the 44-year-old Florida governor is a very young politician who is little known outside of Florida and the southern states, which affects his ratings. In general, the electoral race in the United States is developing unprecedentedly – attempts to counter Trump are so large-scale that the election process can hardly be called normal, says Vasiliev.

Ron DeSantis is the only person in the Republican Party who can seriously challenge Trump, agrees Alexei Naumov, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council. But so far this has not happened, although some of the Republicans who are unhappy with Trump’s candidacy pinned hopes on DeSantis. Initially, DeSantis appeared to voters as a more civilized version of Trump, still capable of radical statements. At the same time, DeSantis did not have a trail of sexual scandals, and his more balanced behavior made it possible to attract the sympathy of religious Republicans. Nevertheless, the gap between Trump and DeSantis is huge, and now DeSantis is actively trying to win over the people of Iowa in order to win in the first stage of the primaries next January and show himself as an elected alternative to Trump. According to Naumov, the Republican Party is still the party of Donald Trump, whose popularity has only increased after the criminal charges, so DeSantis has very little chance.