Voters are starting to sour on Ron DeSantis as unfavorability grows

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has seen a major fall in his favorabilty rating ever since announcing his intention to run for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. But what caused the drop and how bad are things looking for The Sunshine State’s leader?

DeSantis came out of the Covid-19 pandemic as maybe the most popular political figure in America after a series of policies made his state the destination for anyone looking to flee harsh lockdown policies and the monotony of living through all four seasons. 

However, all the popularity the Florida Governor garnered over the years started to sour as his policies aimed at combating the country’s culture war issues and vicious attacks by former president Donald Trump have started taking a toll on DeSantis’ electability.

Online polling company Civiqus released an updated version of its approval rating graph which shows Ron DeSantis is continuing to lose support among the American people with only 36% of 41,249 respondents saying they had a favorable view of the governor. 

The drop represents a 10-point loss since the midterm elections, at which point Florida’s governor held strong at a 46% favorable rating that was maintained between June and November of the previous year. But this is nothing compared to DeSantis’ unfavorability.

Ever since the midterm, DeStanis has had a steady growth in the number of Americans that have an unfavorable view of Florida’s Governor. In November 2022, only 48% of respondents to Civiqus had an unfavorable view of him, but that’s now risen substantially. 

As of June 9th, 55% of people who responded to Civiqus had an unfavorable view of the governor and 9% of people said they were still unsure of how they felt about him, something that probably won’t bode well for DeSantis as he moves into his nomination bid. 

DeSantis is widely seen as the number two candidate in the Republican primary, which means he will not only be the target of the former president’s attacks but also the target of every other ancillary GOP candidate looking to rise to the top of the conservative pile. 

“There’s a huge target on the back of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis,” wrote The Hill’s Brett Smauels, who said political strategists explained that other candidates would be hoping to peel off support from DeSantis in order to build a coalition of voters to help them win. 

Alex Conant is a political strategist that worked with Marco Rubio on his 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination and he explained to Samuels in late May that each of the candidates in the primary would have their own unique reasons for targeting DeSantis. 

“He’ll be taking flack from both the front-runner and the lower-tier,” Conant said, adding that some of the candidates may be vying to be Trump's number two on the presidential ticket while others may hope to net an important cabinet position in the administration. 

Whatever the reason, any attack against DeSantis certainly won’t help him as he tries to win over a voter base that seems like it has no interest in making the governor the next GOP presidential nominee. Civiqus showed nearly all demographics dislike him. 

Every age demographic has an unfavorable rating of DeSantis above 55% according to Civiqus with 18-34-year-olds expressing the most dislike at 63%. Women, a very key group DeSantis will need to win over sit at 62% while non-college graduates are at 54%.

Luckily for DeSantis, Trump is sitting at a 57% unfavorable rating as of June 9th with 36% of Civiqus respondents saying they had a favorable view of the former president, so he is still beating out Trump. Then again the former president’s life is a bit hectic right now. 

One reason could be the governor's public dispute with Disney over culture war issues and another could be damaging anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigration legislation that has put DeSantis’ policy record in Florida at the forefront of the national conversation. 

Whatever the reason for DeSantis’ growing unfavorability, it doesn’t bode well for a man that hitched his political future to the idea that he’s the winner that can beat Joe Biden in the 2024 election. If he fails to beat Trump, it could mark the end of his national political career.