Post-debate poll gives DeSantis hope in presidential race

Is there hope for Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign? A post-debate poll suggests that a big comeback is still possible.

According to a recent InsiderAdvantage poll, DeSantis rose from 10 percent to 18 percent among potential Republican voters, securing second place easily.

While the data alone is not enough to dream of a comeback in the presidential race, there is another encouraging figure for DeSantis' presidential campaign: former President Donald Trump fell six percentage points compared to the last InsiderAdvantage poll.

Despite his legal troubles, the former president is the great favorite to win the primaries, with 45% of voting preference.

Therefore, the Florida governor's net gain was fifteen points, considering Trump’s small drop and DeSantis' own growth.

The other candidate who emerged victorious from the debate was career diplomat Nikki Haley, who raised her numbers from 5 to 11 percent, leaving behind millionaire and millennial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who was highly praised for his performance in the debate but held steady at seven percent.

“Although our survey showed that Vivek Ramaswamy won the debate by a narrow margin, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley were the two major beneficiaries of the debate when it came to the actual horserace,” said Matt Towery, president of InsiderAdvantage. “With a vasty majority of respondents disagreeing with Trump’s decision not to debate, Trump held his lead but now has several candidates still alive in the race for the nomination.”

The poll was released on Friday, a day after Trump was booked by police in Fulton County, Georgia, draws from a sample of 850 likely Republican voters and has a 3 percent margin of error.

“DeSantis performed well in the debate and I think at times looked like the most presidential candidate on the stage,” political consultant Ryan Girdusky told the New York Post. “The biggest issues Republican voters are thinking about this cycle are crime, immigration, and the economy and on all three issues, DeSantis was far better than the rest of the field.”