New polling from Virginia suggests Gov. Ron DeSantis is losing ground with the state’s Republican Presidential Primary voters.
The August survey from Roanoke College shows the Governor is down to just 13% support, compared to the 28% he held in the previous survey this pollster released in early June.
“Donald Trump maintains a commanding lead of 47% as the first choice among self-reported Virginia Republicans, followed by DeSantis at 13% and the rest of the candidates in single digits. While Trump’s level of support remains about the same as our last poll, the percentage of Republicans reporting DeSantis as their first choice has dropped by 15 (percentage points) since our last poll in May,” reads the polling memo.
A previous Roanoke College poll from February showed an even more narrow race for the top spot, with Trump ahead of DeSantis by 11 points, 39% to 28%.
The one bright spot here is that DeSantis is in a three-way race for second choice.
“We also asked Virginians to report their second-choice candidate for the Republican nomination, where the results showed a more competitive field. Approximately 19% of Republicans reported DeSantis as their second choice, followed by Trump (17%), Vivek Ramaswamy (17%), Glenn Youngkin (14%), Tim Scott (9%), Mike Pence (8%) and Nikki Haley (6%).”
One reason for the DeSantis decline might be doubts that the Florida Governor is any better positioned for a General Election than the repeatedly indicted former President.
In the recent Commonwealth Poll conducted by the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, Youngkin is the only one of the three GOP hopefuls polled against Joe Biden to win outright. While 44% of respondents prefer their own Governor (against 37% for Biden), neither DeSantis nor Trump have leads.
The Race to the White House polling average likely won’t be helped by the Roanoke poll. It shows Trump ahead of DeSantis, 47% to 28%.
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