Ron DeSantis Outperforms Trump in the Former President’s Home County

Former President Donald Trump is the hypothetical frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, but Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be the people’s choice in the potential rivals’ home state.

In Tuesday’s election, DeSantis outperformed Trump’s 2020 Florida victory in several counties—including Trump’s home of Palm Beach—in a sign of DeSantis’ mainstream appeal as some believe he’s weighing his own potential run for the White House.

With more than 93 percent of the vote counted Tuesday night, DeSantis had defeated Democratic opponent Charlie Crist by three points in Trump’s home of Palm Beach County, where then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden had won by nearly 13 points just two years earlier.

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at a campaign rally Monday at the Cheyenne Saloon in Orlando. DeSantis defeated former Democratic Governor Charlie Crist in the state’s general election. Octavio Jones/Getty Images

DeSantis also outperformed Trump by about seven points in deep-blue Leon County—home to the state capital, Tallahassee—and appeared to be on track to take Hillsborough County by just as much, a stunning turnaround from two years ago when now-President Biden won the county by a similar margin.

DeSantis also reported a strong showing in the Hispanic stronghold of Miami-Dade, becoming the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to win the county since Jeb Bush 20 years ago.

And where Trump narrowly lost Duval County—the first time a Republican had lost the county in decades—DeSantis ran away with it by 13 points.

For those studying polls, the result was not unusual. While national polls showed Trump as the clear frontrunner in a hypothetical Republican primary in 2024, DeSantis has largely outperformed Trump in polling as voters’ first choice in the former president’s adopted home state. A Data for Progress survey of 777 likely GOP primary voters released this week showed DeSantis with a two-point lead over the former president in a head-to-head primary, while other surveys in the past have shown even wider victory margins.

But it was also a very different race than 2020. Where nearly 11 million ballots were cast in 2020’s highly competitive presidential contest, this year’s midterm election saw significantly lower turnout in all corners of the Sunshine State, resulting in DeSantis winning reelection in a landslide.

And though Trump stated early in the day that he had voted for DeSantis, the results Tuesday night showed a party-crossing appeal for DeSantis that Trump appeared to lack.

In the lead-up to Election Day, some Democratic officials crossed party lines to endorse DeSantis. Hispanic voters, who some believed would oppose his headline-grabbing decision to send undocumented migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to the liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, provided surprising support to DeSantis. Strategists say this emphasized Democrats’ weakening grip on the Hispanic vote.

But Florida also saw a sizable increase in population in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, raising questions on whether DeSantis’ popularity in the state after his handling of COVID, his rising national profile and his performance during Hurricane Ian could appeal to a broader section of the voting public. Doubts swirl about his viability as a national candidate, as Trump lost the popular vote by millions in the 2020 presidential election.

“It’s not just will he do better—it’s whether the margins actually broaden out,” Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff, told SkyNews entering election night. “It’s will his appeal move beyond the MAGA Republicans to more independent voters, swing voters and even some Democrats. That’s what we’re looking for tonight.”