Poll: Ron DeSantis has 15% support among Ohio Republicans

Ron DeSantis

New polling from the Buckeye State is bad news for Ron DeSantis.

In a poll of 405 likely Ohio GOP Primary voters from East Carolina University conducted between June 21 and June 24, the Florida Governor has just 15% support. That puts him 44 points behind former President Donald Trump, who leads all candidates with 59% backing.

DeSantis’ hold on second place is firm for now: former Vice President Mike Pence has 5% support, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has 4%, author Vivek Ramaswamy has 3%, former United Nations envoy Nikki Haley has 2%, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has 1%.

DeSantis has made political appearances in Ohio this year, albeit before the formal launch of his presidential campaign. He visited the state while South Florida was dealing with historic flooding in the spring.

The Governor, addressing the Butler County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, said in April that he represented so-called “Ohio values.”

“I can stand here representing Ohio values because the two most important women in my life (are from Ohio),” DeSantis said. “My mother is from Youngstown, and my wife is from Troy, and so my family reflects your family.”

The Governor also touted his Buckeye State ties in his memoir, “The Courage to be Free.”

“I was geographically raised in Tampa Bay,” DeSantis writes, “but culturally my upbringing reflected the working-class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio — from weekly church attendance to the expectation that one would earn his keep. This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving.”

During a recent appearance touting the book with the Fox News Channel’s Mark Levin, DeSantis explained how the region’s values formed him and buoyed his innate sense of conservatism.

“My father’s from western Pennsylvania, my mother’s from Northeastern Ohio. So that is, like, steel country. That is like blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth, and, as you know Mark, Florida’s very eclectic. People kind of come from all over, we do have a culture and so I grew up in that culture, but really it was kind of those Rust Belt values that raised me.”

That narrative has been abetted by friendly coverage, notably an NBC News piece that emphasized his familial roots in the Mahoning Valley.

Long before DeSantis released his second book, he visited Ohio on a 2022 campaign swing on behalf of Senate candidate J.D. Vance. The event included limitations on media access and an asserted right by organizers Turning Point USA to have “access to footage … upon request” and to “know in what matter the footage will be utilized.”

The Governor played up his local ties there.

“My mother is from Youngstown and she’s here … and my father is from Aliquippa but went to Youngstown State,” DeSantis said.

While that sort of homecoming may have offered the Governor a unique opportunity to revisit cultural touchstones, his endorsement of Vance will not be reciprocated. The Hillbilly Elegy author has already endorsed Donald Trump in 2024.