ORLANDO, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis holds sizable advantages over his potential Democratic opponents in this year’s race for governor, a poll released Tuesday shows.
The Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey also has U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist well ahead among Democratic candidates for the job.
But this far out, those leads could still be because of name recognition, Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker said in his analysis.
The main poll, taken of 625 registered Florida voters from Feb. 7 to 10, shows DeSantis with a 53% approval rating, unchanged since February 2021. DeSantis’ disapproval also remained virtually unchanged, at 43% compared with 42% a year ago.
His approval rating lies exactly between DeSantis’ 61% approval in March 2019, shortly after taking office, and his lowest rating of 45% in June 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and issues with the state’s overwhelmed unemployment compensation system.
In the race for governor, DeSantis led all three major Democratic candidates by at least 8 points, a “decent cushion” heading into the year, Coker said.
DeSantis led Crist 51% to 43%, his closest margin. He was beating Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried 53% to 41%, an 11-point margin, and led state Sen. Annette Taddeo, D-Miami, 53% to 37%, a 16-point lead.
DeSantis had a positive approval in all regions except Democratic-leaning Southeast Florida, according to the poll.
He was slightly underwater with women, with 47% approval compared with 49% disapproval, but had 60% approval among men. He also had 61% approval among independents, with just 32% disapproval.
“These leads all appear to be related to DeSantis’s name recognition advantage, although Crist is almost comparably well known,” Coker said of Crist, a former Republican governor-turned-Democratic congressman.
In a survey of 400 likely Democratic primary voters, Crist led with 44% compared to Fried’s 27% and Taddeo’s 3%. Another 26% remained undecided, a “significant” amount, Coker said.
Taddeo’s numbers could be due to her low name recognition, with more than half of statewide respondents not recognizing her.
The margin for error in the matchup poll was 4 percentage points, with a 5-percent margin in the Democratic voter poll.
