Most people believe Ron Desantis is more electable than Trump. However, this is wrong. I admit Trump might benefit from showing Desantis's restraint; however, that doesn't mean that Desantis is the better candidate; Shaq would have benefitted from having Larry Bird’s free throw discipline, but Shaq is unquestionably the better player. While I admit Desantis does things that Trump would be well-advised to imitate, he has a host of his own problems that make him unelectable. I say this as an admirer of Desantis, by the way.
The electoral map is likely to be largely the same as it was in 2020---with the outcome depending on Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Of those states, the only one Desantis has a better chance of swinging than Trump is Arizona. Arizona has 11 electoral votes, while Georgia has 16, Pennsylvania has 20 and Michigan has 15 (down from 16 in 2020). GA, PA, WI, and MI all have a large number of working-class voters who are likely to resent Desantis and his Ivy League mannerisms, despite his more middle-class upbringing. I know Trump went to Wharton, but unlike Desantis he doesn't eat, drink, and speak as if he did. Remember, PA elected a lobotomy patient because of how much they resented Dr. Oz's love of crudites. (I also like crudites, and so do most working-class people; they just don't know it because they call them celery sticks). Michigan is largely the same way. Trump also polls better with blacks, which could be key to winning GA. Trump has a very good chance of winning GA this time around especially if he makes Tim Scott his running mate. This will blunt the moronic accusations of racism while helping to win the black vote.
When people think fraud, and judicial intervention, didn't affect the 2020 election, they forget just how close the margin was in some of those swing states, less than 20K votes in WI and GA. With Covid out of the way, and Biden’s dementia showing more and more, Trump is likely to have a better showing in 2024 than he did in 2020. Desantis, however, is an unknown who could very easily alienate the working class.
Those who think Desantis has a better chance of winning than Trump are not paying attention to the details. They are basing their opinion on the current snapshot of election polling and ignoring the long-term trends: While Trump is stable, Desantis is trending downward. Consider this graph: Civiqs | Ron DeSantis: Favorable Rating (Link below). Yes, in present polling Desantis narrowly beats out Biden. But if you project the current trend lines out, Desantis loses massively while Trump remains a coinflip. Indeed, the current polling has Desantis beating out Biden by a small amount and Trump losing by a small amount; however, given the margin of error in these polls, Desantis’ lead is not meaningful. It is a choice of coinflips if Desantis holds steady. If Desantis’s polling gets worse, we will be wishing we chose the Donald.
Another fact that Desantis supporters are leaving out of their analysis is just how many Trump supporters will refuse to turn out on election day if their beloved candidate is not chosen. The negative effect on Republican turnout, esp. in an election that is likely to see much lower turnout among Democrats and independents than we saw in 2020, could easily outweigh Desantis’s supposed advantages. To win in 2024, we need to maximize Republican turnout, which won’t happen if Desantis is the nominee.
Desantis supporters also fail to realize that at this point in the polling, Desantis is not that well known: In short, he fills the space of “generic Republican other than Trump.” However, once the media smear machine gets rolling, Desantis will find himself even less popular than Donald Trump. Desantis is not well known enough in states other than Florida for his polling to really be about him. The picture current polling paints of Desantis is not really that impressive when you consider that it is a pre-smear picture. Desantis can only go down from here. The media is likely to bring up Desantis’s military service at Gitmo—expect him to be accused of participating in torture and covering up the suspicious deaths of three detainees. His scandals will make Trump’s look silly by comparison.
Desantis is trying to pull votes from Trump by tacking to Trump’s right: While this might be his best strategy in the primaries since “Never Trumpers” will simply vote for him because he is shelling point (i.e. the person “most likely to dethrone Trump”) and he needs to peal voters away from Trump to win the primaries, it will make it very hard for him to tack back to the center during the general election: His stances during the primaries are also likely to win him a great deal of media ire he will not be able to shake off. Voters might find the man who is to the right of Trump hard to swallow after having been convinced that Trump is as right wing as Hitler or Pinochet.
Lastly, Desantis is too emotionally closed off to win. He certainly speaks in a peculiar monotone that is hardly inspiring. There is speculation that he has autism---and if that is true, voters will likely experience a vague sense that something is wrong with him, something they just can't quite identify. This is devastating. People need to be able to explain an eccentricity if they are going to accept it. And autism, I can assure you, is not very well accepted even in its most subtle manifestations. Indeed, subtle forms of it are often more hated than more severe manifestations because they can be more easily confused with simply being a jerk.
All this amounts to Trump having a better chance in a general election than Desantis. This is all a moot point, however, as Alvin Bragg basically guaranteed Trump the nomination by turning him into a martyr with his completely nonsense indictment. Trump will be the candidate no matter how hard Fox News and Daily Wire pull for Desantis.
https://civiqs.com/results/favorable_ron_desantis?uncertainty=true&annotations=true&zoomIn=true