The DeSantis effect: ahead of Trump in polls for 2024 presidential election

According to a YouGov poll, 23% of Americans would prefer Ron DeSantis as the Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election, while Donald Trump receives 20% support.

Among GOP insiders, the Florida governor now has greater support than the former president. Forty-one percent of Republicans opt for DeSantis while 39% indicate they prefer Trump as a candidate. On the other hand, independents also choose DeSantis (18%) ahead of Trump (15%).

Possible candidates

Speculation surrounding Donald Trump and his possible candidacy for the 2024 elections began virtually the same day his term ended on January 20, 2021. Nearly twenty-two months later, the former president made a surprise announcement at a rally in Ohio on Election Day, saying that this Tuesday, November 15, he will make a "big announcement," in what seems most likely to be a reference to the filing of his candidacy for the next presidential election. But the rumors do not stop there.

For the next presidential election, Donald Trump's possible candidacy would come up against his big first obstacle: Ron DeSantis. Speculation continues to surround the Florida governor, whom many consider to be a possible Republican candidate in 2024 and who would face the former president in a hypothetical GOP primary election.

Donald Trump went so far as to endorse DeSantis' candidacy for the midterms, but subsequently, in another turn of events, the former president then began attacking him. Forty-eight hours before the votes, Trump called DeSantis a "prude" and, four days later, called him a "mediocre governor."

Midterms: DeSantis wins...

The Republican Party is close to gaining a majority in the House of Representatives, however. they failed to obtain the 51 senators required to have a majority in the Upper House. Although the GOP failed to meet its goal of controlling Congress, the big winner of the midterms was Ron DeSantis.

The Sunshine State governor swept the midterm elections and was re-elected with a wide margin over the Democratic candidate Charlie Crist (59% to 40%). All this, after his coreligionist Trump called him a "prude."

He first ran for governor of Florida in 2018, when he won by less than half a percentage point over his then Democratic challenger. Four years later, he has managed to receive the votes of three out of five Floridians.

...and Trump loses

Several of the candidates endorsed by the former president and who supported the QAnon theory lost support. One of them is Herschel Walker, a senatorial candidate for Georgia, who did not get the required 50% of the vote -according to state law- to win his seat in Congress and will have to face his Democratic rival in a runoff election. Additionially, around 200,000 Georgians who voted for the Republican gubernatorial candidate did not vote for Walker. On the other hand, Senate candidates such as Mehmet Oz, Don Bolduc and Adam Laxalt lost in their respective races.

Lauren Boebert, from Colorado's 3rd District, won by less than the expected distance and had to wait until the final votes to confirm her seat in the House of Representatives. On the other hand, Marjorie Taylor Greene, from Georgia's 14th district, also lost votes compared tp past elections despite her victory.