Ron DeSantis has quickly skyrocketed to the top of the presidential pack in 2024. While the election is still more than three years away, a new poll has the Florida Governor leading Donald Trump. The straw poll from a Conservative organization asked which candidates people approved of for president in 2024.
While potential candidates such as Nikki Haley have said they won’t run in 2024 if Donald Trump runs, we haven’t heard that line from DeSantis. Though today former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows weighed in, telling the Washington Examiner: “I think Ron DeSantis is identified across the country now for the courage that he shows for conservative solutions, and he would be the first to say that if President Trump gets in, that he would win the nomination and would clear the field, and so I don’t ever see it being a 2016 primary scenario.” It’s probably safe to say that Meadows may be speaking more for Trump there, than on behalf of DeSantis.
If both men were to run, it could set up a showdown between the mentor and mentee. Back in 2018, News & Guts wrote about DeSantis’ first big ad on the political scene in which the Republican showed he was following in Trump’s footsteps. He proclaimed his love for Trump’s wall, the MAGA phrase, and even credited himself as a “Pitbull Trump Defender.” Trump endorsed him and both men have shown an affinity for each other over the last three years. But now in the last year, as Trump’s clout has gone down, DeSantis’s power in politics has been on the rise. Before leaving office some polls show Trump’s approval rating as low as 29%, A recent poll shows DeSantis’ approval rating in Florida is hovering around 53%.
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post today, Henry Olsen writes:
His leadership during the pandemic, which attracted regular criticism from the media for keeping Florida too open, endeared him to many on the right. His recent effort to regulate social media has kept his name in the limelight and touched a chord among ardent conservatives.
Trump recently remarked that he would consider having DeSantis run as his vice president in 2024, but it’s hard to imagine that the Governor wants to position himself as second on the ticket. For now, DeSantis needs to keep his eye on next year. He’s up for re-election and a loss in that race would seem to make him a more unattractive candidate in 2024.
