Poll: Ron DeSantis trails Donald Trump by 54 points in Ohio

GIRARD, OH — AUGUST 19: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida speaks at the Unite and Win Rally that also featured Ohio Republican nominee for US Senate J.D. Vance, August 19, 2022, at the Metroplex Expo Center in Girard, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal)

A new poll from the Buckeye State offers dismal news for Ron DeSantis.

The survey from Ohio Northern University (ONU) shows a seemingly insurmountable lead for former President Donald Trump, who is supported by nearly 2/3 of the GOP electorate.

“Trump is the clear choice among Ohio Republicans and there’s little he can do to change their minds,” the pollsters assert.

“He is the clear choice among GOP voters for their nominee (64%). Just 6% say it is likely they would support another candidate and only 5% say they would not support him if he was convicted of a felony.”

Meanwhile, DeSantis (10%) and Vivek Ramaswamy (9%) are far behind.

If there is a positive for the Florida Governor here it’s that he shows a marginal gain from the 9% support he had in July’s poll, and is no longer behind Ramaswamy, who dropped from 12% in the Summer survey.

“It is hard to see at this point how Donald Trump will not be the nominee of the Republican party. Regardless of his legal troubles, his support in the GOP is rock solid,” states ONU’s Robert Alexander.

Earlier this year, DeSantis polled better, but was still far behind the former President.

A USA Today survey conducted between July 9 and July 12 by Suffolk University shows Trump leading DeSantis by only 23 points, 48% to 25%. Ramaswamy was in low single digits in that poll.

A June poll from East Carolina University saw Trump leading DeSantis 59% to 15%.

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 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 an 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.”