Poll: Ron DeSantis trails Donald Trump by 42 points in Georgia

Donald Trump - Ron DeSantis. Image via AP.

As Gov. Ron DeSantis takes a break from “political season” to deal with a looming hurricane, new polling from a neighboring state illustrates the tall task when he’s back on the campaign trail.

In the latest survey from the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs, the Florida Governor has just 15% support among the 807 Peach State Republicans polled.

That puts him 42 points behind Donald Trump, the front-runner who was arrested in that state earlier this month after being accused of trying to overturn 2020 election results. Trump has 57% support.

“The difference between first-place candidate Trump’s estimated vote share and second-place candidate DeSantis’ estimated vote share, at 41.9, is statistically significant. In plain English, Trump is currently leading DeSantis in the Republican Presidential Primary in Georgia,” reads a polling memo.

Georgia is a two-man race. The next leading candidate, former Vice President Mike Pence, has just 4% support.

DeSantis is above 10% with most demographics, but below 20% with all. He does best with voters who have been to graduate school, with more than 18% support among the cerebral set. He does worst with “minority” voters, of whom just 11% back the Florida Governor, and with voters making between $100,000 and $150,000 a year, of whom less than 10% back him.

The Governor campaigned in Georgia this month, where he kissed the ring of the state’s leading college football factory.

“I will say as somebody who was born and raised in Florida, the Florida-Georgia game was a little easier lift for us back in the day than it is now. And you Georgians know what I mean,” said DeSantis, an alum of Yale University and Harvard Law School.

“So, congratulations on all the success,” DeSantis added. “We’ve done better on almost everything policy-wise. I can point out many things. College football has not necessarily been one of them. So we’re trying to turn the corner.”

Despite his efforts to ingratiate himself with locals, the new survey is by far the worst for DeSantis in the state.

A May Landmark Communications survey of 800 likely GOP Primary voters showed DeSantis with 32% support, just 8 points behind the former President’s 40%.

An April survey by the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs Research Center showed Trump leading in a crowded field, up 51% to 30% over DeSantis. When the matchup was restricted to just Trump and DeSantis, the former President still led by 11 points.

DeSantis had previously seen strength in a number of Georgia polls that tracked a potential head-to-head contest between Trump and him in a hypothetical 2024 Primary, showing a history of strength compared to the former President in the neighboring state. Last year, he warned the state’s residents against electing a Democrat Governor.

He did have a line before the November 2022 election warning against electing a recurrent Democratic candidate by suggesting she was a Marxist revolutionary.

“If Stacey Abrams is elected Governor of Georgia, I just want to be honest, that will be a cold war between Florida and Georgia,” DeSantis said at a press conference back in the spring. “I can’t have (former Cuban leader Raúl) Castro to my south and Abrams to my north, that would be a disaster. So I hope you guys take care of that and we’ll end up in good shape.”