Florida Governor and Republican U.S. presidential candidate Ron DeSantis attends a barbecue hosted by former diplomat Scott Brown, as a part of his “No B.S. Backyard BBQ” series, in Rye, Latest Hampshire, U.S. July 30, 2023.Â
Reba Saldanha | Reuters
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday he doesn’t imagine Donald Trump can beat President Joe Biden in a general election — but many Republican voters don’t agree, in response to the newest national polls within the GOP primary race.
“I beat Biden in Georgia, Trump doesn’t. I beat Biden soundly in Arizona, Trump doesn’t,” DeSantis said of Trump in a Fox News interview. “Those are only the realities.”
The remarks got here hours after a recent poll from The Latest York Times and Siena College found Trump running roughshod over the remaining of the Republican field.
Trump leads 54% to DeSantis’ 17%, a 37-point gap, among the many likely Republican primary electorate, in response to the survey. No other GOP candidate scored above 3% within the poll, which was conducted from July 23 to July 27 and has a margin of error of three.96 percentage points.
The likely Republican primary voters also told the pollsters that they considered Trump to be more electable against Biden than DeSantis. Asked whether the phrase “In a position to beat Joe Biden” higher described Trump or DeSantis 58% of those respondents picked the previous president, versus 28% who selected the governor.
But DeSantis in Monday’s interview maintained that he, not Trump, was the higher bet to tackle the Democratic incumbent.
Fox’s Bret Baier asked DeSantis, “You don’t think that former President Trump could win a general election against Joe Biden?”
DeSantis replied, “I do not think so, because I believe that there is too many citizens who just aren’t going to vote for him going forward.”
He also argued that Trump can be unable to seek out enough capable people to work for him to be politically effective.
“If you need to slay this administrative state, you gotta be disciplined, you gotta be focused, and also you gotta have people surrounding you which might be going to go and support the mission,” DeSantis said. “I believe the previous president would have a really difficult time getting the variety of personnel to affix the administration that you simply would want to truly bring these items to fruition.”
DeSantis’ latest remarks got here days after NBC News reported that his two-month-old campaign has fired greater than 40% of its original staff because it struggles to shut the gap with Trump. The campaign revamp has come amid reported concerns about its fundraising operation, with some top donors looking elsewhere in the first for a substitute for Trump.
