The two most popular politicians in Florida have very different takes on the Sunshine State. NBC 6’s Steve Litz reports
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a slight lead over a fellow Sunshine State resident, former President Donald Trump, among projected candidates in the 2024 presidential election, according to the latest Mason-Dixon poll.
The poll conducted last week and released Tuesday, which surveyed 625 registered voters in Florida, showed DeSantis with a 44% to 39% lead over Trump, who moved to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach County after leaving office.
DeSantis also had a 59% job approval rating in the latest poll, up from 55% in September 2022. His disapproval rating was at 39% with 2% of those surveyed saying they were not sure.
Some 90% of Republicans surveyed approved of DeSantis while just 24% of Democrats surveyed gave him the same approval. Around 49% of those surveyed in the state's seven southeast counties, including both Broward and Miami-Dade, disapproved of DeSantis. It is the only region in the state where DeSantis had a higher disapproval number as only 48% surveyed approved of the governor.
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President Joe Biden, who lost in Florida to Trump in the 2020 election, saw his disapproval rating in the state rise to 60% - up 5% from February 2022. At the same time, 50% of those surveyed gave Trump an unfavorable ranking.
The margin for error for the poll was ± 4 percentage points.
DeSantis has not publicly announced if he is running in the 2024 election while Trump announced his candidacy last November.
