It has not been a good couple of weeks for Florida Governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, and it’s showing in his polling. DeSantis is now trailing behind former president Donald Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in the latest Fox Business Poll published on Sunday.
In the poll conducted between July 15 to 19 with 808 South Carolina likely Republican primary voters, DeSantis is behind Haley by one percentage point and Trump by a vast 35 percentage points.
Meanwhile, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott holds 10 percent support, with no other candidate reaching double-digit figures.
Winning South Carolina in the 2024 primaries holds significant importance, as it sets the stage for crucial early momentum in the subsequent primaries. Since 1980, every South Carolina winner, with the exception of former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 2012, has gone on to secure the GOP nomination.
DeSantis has leaned increasingly into the far-right, weaponizing Florida legislation to advance the anti-inclusion agenda targeting the LGBT and Black communities, a move that observers, including other conservatives, say is pushing him farther away from swing-state and younger voters.
His fundraising performance is also flailing. While he raised $20 million in the first six weeks of his campaign, his expenditures of $8 million during the same period have led to questions about his campaign’s financial sustainability. His latest campaign finance disclosures reveal that more than two-thirds of his second-quarter donations are from big donors who have now maxed out the limit of the amount they’re allowed to give. Only 15% of his donations come from small donors.
Additionally, reports indicate that he dismissed staffers to cut back on spending, rubbing salt into the wound that is his candidacy.
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