The Trump campaign says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will be “guaranteed humiliation” and lose the Florida primary by a massive margin following the release of a new poll by Victory Insights.
“GUARANTEED HUMILIATION: DeSantis Will Lose The Florida Primary By A Massive Margin.” said the Trump camp in an email statement.
According to a new Victory Insights poll, former President Donald Trump leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican primary field by 40 points.
Ben Galbraith, senior pollster for Victory Insights, wrote in a memo: “I’ll keep this short because there’s not too much to say. Donald Trump remains the clear favorite for the 2024 GOP nomination, even in Ron DeSantis’s home state of Florida. In our latest survey, Floridians’ support for DeSantis’ presidential bid has now dropped into the teens. Not only is this the lowest we’ve seen him since we began tracking this race over a year ago, it’s the lowest support recorded for him in Florida from any pollster at any point in the race. The DeSantis campaign appears to be in free fall.”
Source: Victory Insights poll of likely Florida GOP primary voters conducted December 8-9
Trump has a more than 40% lead over his opponents, and even if the race came down to Trump and DeSantis, Trump would still be ahead by more than 30 points, according to the poll.
Victory insights say that DeSantis’ drop since the August poll could be attributed to Nikki Haley’s rise – the former UN Ambassador has gained 6 points while the Florida Governor has lost 4.
Meanwhile on Monday, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a political action committee backed by the Koch network, is amping up its ground campaign in Iowa for former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, with just five weeks before the caucuses, according to NBC News.
AFP Action announced that they have allocated $4 million for digital advertising and canvassing for Haley, and are deploying 100 people to knock doors for Haley in Iowa.
The group has knocked on at least 350,000 doors and made 700,000 more calls since February, surveying which voters are looking for a GOP candidate besides former President Donald Trump, Drew Klein, the senior advisor for AFP Action, which endorsed Haley in November, said during an event Sunday.
“She’s had the momentum. Her message was being well-received,” Klein said, according to NBC News. “This has been the missing piece.”
Haley, who served as governor of South Carolina for six years before becoming an ambassador, had a significant lead over President Joe Biden in a theoretical match-up by 17 points, according to a recent poll.
Haley spoke at an event Saturday alongside Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy with Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra. Voters told the DCNF that they were still trying to “make up [their] mind” when it came to a GOP candidate, but several expressed concerns with Haley’s statements on the transgender issue and noted that the other candidates had “beat up” on her over her past comments during the last debate.
DeSantis has spent a significant amount of time in Iowa, fulfilling a campaign promise to visit all 99 counties, while also grabbing the endorsement from Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Never Back Down, a Florida super PAC, says it has knocked on 750,000 doors and had 30,000 people commit to caucus for him. David Oman, a former co-chair of the Iowa Republican Party, told NBC, however, that in Iowa it’s important to come in “hot at the end.”
“There’s an old Iowa caucus saying: ‘Organize, organize and get hot at the end.’ She is getting hot at the end,” Oman said. “She’s getting hot when she needs to.”
“Our campaign is built to last, and AFP’s endorsement ensures we have a ground game that matches and exceeds Trump and DeSantis.” Haley’s spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas told the DCNF.
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