Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been making aggressive assertions that he’d do better that Donald Trump in a 2024 general election against Joe Biden. Polls of Republican presidential primary voters show they don’t buy it.
As Ron DeSantis tries to catch up to Republican presidential primary front-runner Donald Trump, the Florida governor’s campaign has been making aggressive assertions that he has an advantage in terms of his “electability” against Joe Biden. The case for DeSantis being the better Republican general-election candidate has had less to do with any direct evidence than with the fading memories of his strong reelection performance in 2022, compared to the mixed results of Trump-endorsed midterms candidates and, of course, his loss to Biden in 2020.
But truth be told, a lot of DeSantis’s electability claims are more about Republican voters’ presumed lack of trust in Trump, which isn’t all that well established. In fact, a new Monmouth survey of Republicans shows Trump has an electability advantage over DeSantis. It’s not even very close. If you directly ask Republicans which candidate is stronger against Biden, Trump wins pretty clearly:
Regardless of whether you currently support Donald Trump, which of the following statements comes closest to your view about which Republican has the best chance to win in 2024.
Forty-five percent said Trump was definitely stronger and another 24 percent said Trump was probably stronger. Only 13 percent said any other Republican is definitely stronger, and 18 percent said some other Republican is probably stronger. Directly comparing Trump and DeSantis, 47 percent said the Florida governor was weaker than the former president; 22 percent said he was stronger.
It’s not just Monmouth showing DeSantis’s loss of an electability advantage (if he ever had one). As the ’s Aaron Blake notes, this problem shows up in early state polls as well:
Fox Business polls in the key primary states of Iowa and South Carolina tell the same tale.
In Iowa, 45 percent said Trump would be the most likely to defeat Biden, while 23 percent picked DeSantis. And in South Carolina, Trump’s edge on this measure was threefold: 51 percent to 17 percent.
In recent weeks, DeSantis has deemphasized the argument that he’s more appealing to swing voters and instead focused on out-Trumping Trump by running to his right on immigration, crime, COVID-19, and federal spending. It’s possible he’s abandoning his once-obsessive electability pitch altogether and is going after hard-core “very conservative” and/or ultra-MAGA voters. Some right-wing Republicans believe, improbably, that swing voters actually want stridently ideological candidates rather than any sort of squishy centrists. And in the end, a candidate can’t win the general election at all without winning the nomination. More likely, Team DeSantis is going after today’s Trump voters by abandoning anything like moderation and perhaps making electability an afterthought.

Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has been acquitted of all charges by a London jury in a high-profile sexual assault case, sparring him of a possible prison term. It happened on his 64th birthday. Tears rolled down Spacey’s cheeks as the final verdict of ‘not guilty’ was read. He looked at the jury, placed his hand
It happened on his 64th birthday.
Tears rolled down Spacey’s cheeks as the final verdict of “not guilty” was read. He looked at the jury, placed his hand over his heart, and mouthed a “thank you.”
Spacey testified about the six years he’s gone without work after the sexual abuse allegations from four men during the United States’ #MeToo movement of 2017.
“My world exploded,” Spacey testified. “There was a rush to judgment and before the first question was asked or answered I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything in a matter of days.”
Three men accused Spacey of grabbing their crotches in an aggressive manner. He was called “vile” and “slippery” and “snaky” by those accusers. A fourth said he awoke in Spacey’s apartment with the actor performing oral sex on him after the accuser had falling asleep or passed out. That accuser, an aspiring actor, claimed he went to Spacey’s place for career advice.
Spacey was facing nine charges, including multiple counts of sexual assault. He had also faced one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
Per the AP: “One of the men broke down when speaking with police as he provided details in a videotaped interview about the oral sex incident that he said he’d never told anyone before. Another man said he was angry about the abuse that occurred sporadically over several years and began to drink and work out more to cope with it.”
Spacey’s attorney, Patrick Gibbs, called three of the accusers liars and said they “reimagined” their incidents with Spacey “with a sinister spin.” Gibbs added that the men hopped on a “bandwagon” of accusations in an attempt to get rich.
In the end, it seems, the jury agreed.