Republican 2024 presidential hopeful and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been at the sharp end of political punditry over the past month, with polls consistently putting him behind his main political rival, Donald Trump.
While some results from July 2023 suggest Trump's lead may be slipping, DeSantis remains a distant second with recent data putting him 29 percentage points behind the former president in national polls of Republican voters.
Seemingly undeterred by these reports, the governor appeared on Fox News earlier this week claiming that he still had a strong base of support among Republican voters.
The Claim
In an interview with Howard Kurtz on Fox News, on July 16, 2023, Ron DeSantis claimed that he had the highest favorability ratings among GOP voters.
Kurtz asked DeSantis: "Did you let Trump define you by waiting too long to respond to his attacks when you were being governor and you weren't officially in the race?"
DeSantis responded: "Not at all. I think even some of these polls, if you're going to take them for what they're worth, they say I have the highest favorability amongst Republican voters, and so I think they made a big mistake by spending all that money against me."
The Facts
Here, DeSantis appears to be claiming that Trump's attack tactics used toward his campaign were a waste because (as he claims) he has a higher favorability rating among Republican voters.
It's worth noting off the bat that the credibility of pollsters, the populations they poll, and the shifting nature of public opinion can make the shelf life of these results short-term.
As quickly as one poll can shift the narrative in one candidate's favor, an opposing poll or a challenging headline can quickly undo the successes gleaned from an earlier survey.
However, in the case of DeSantis' favorability among Republican voters, there does not appear to be much in the way of convincing recent evidence that supports his favorability claim.
To assess his claim, Newsweek looked at polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight on DeSantis' favorability ratings since June compared to those of his main rival Donald Trump.
To get a favorability rating, pollsters typically ask respondents how much they like a candidate on a Likert scale: from very favorable to very unfavorable with two "somewhat" or "slight" responses in between. Respondents can also answer "don't know".
Favorability may be ranked based either on the positive responses alone (i.e., the total percentage of people who said they very much or slightly favored a candidate) or on aggregate by subtracting the proportion of total negative respondents from positive respondents.
By both measures, DeSantis appears to fall short.
Based on positive responses alone, DeSantis only polled higher once, in an AP NORC survey, conducted between June 22-26, 2023. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they very much or slightly favored him compared to Trump's 60 percent.
In the 11 other surveys, Trump surpassed DeSantis.
The following Statista graphic compiling results from YouGov surveys on this metric shows that since April 2022, DeSantis has fallen below Trump consistently among Republican and American voters.
On favorability aggregate scores, the Florida governor fared only slightly better, winning three surveys out of 12. DeSantis scored a net positive rating over Trump by 20 percent in the AP/NORC survey, by four percent in a YouGov survey for July 1-5, and by one percent in a Hart/NBC poll for June 16-20.
It, therefore, seems that DeSantis has consistently tracked behind Trump since he announced his campaign bid.
It may be that DeSantis' campaign has its own data that may refute the polls Newsweek has seen. Newsweek contacted a DeSantis presidential campaign media representative to ask for the data the Florida governor based his claim on, pointing out the public data from Statista and others.
It's also possible that DeSantis' phrasing (specifying "Republican voters") could be important. Most of the polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight were made up of a majority of registered voters. It could be that DeSantis was referring to polling that only included verified, registered Republican voters.
Even then, if you were to exclude participants from the surveys Newsweek examined who didn't say they were registered, the pattern of data seems to suggest that Trump has greater favorability overall.
As it stands, there doesn't seem to be much (if any) evidence to support the notion that DeSantis has a higher favorability among Republican voters, contrary to his statement on Fox News.
The Ruling
False.
Across a wide range of polls conducted since June 2023, DeSantis has on most occasions had lower favorability and lower aggregate favorability ratings among Republican voters compared to his main political rival, Donald Trump.
While Newsweek has asked DeSantis to provide data that supports his claim, based on available evidence and analysis by pollsters, the Florida governor does not rank highest among Republican voters.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
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