(NewsNation) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a contender for the 2024 GOP nomination, in particular for voters who want fewer sideshows than former President Donald Trump tended to elicit, The Hill’s Niall Stanage said on “Morning in America.”
This comes as DeSantis was favored to edge out former Trump for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination in a poll held at an annual conservative conference earlier this month.
“Ron DeSantis is I think, clearly the most obvious rival to former President Trump, even if they were both to run together. DeSantis is lagging by a considerable margin but he seems to be the one that really gets conservatives excited,” Stanage said. “There is a perception among his supporters that he could offer similarly conservative politics without some of the sideshows that the former president tends to incite.”
The annual straw poll, taken at the Western Conservative Summit organized by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University, put DeSantis as the frontrunner, with the backing of 71% of respondents according to reports. Trump came in a close second with about 67% of the vote followed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in third and Ben Carson in fourth. Pence was not included.
While there are other polls that lean in favor of the former president, any poll with a contender besides Trump coming out on top is significant. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll shared exclusively with The Hill in January put Trump as the early favorite. DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence were nearly deadlocked at 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively. No other would-be candidate tested in the poll registers double-digit support.
Neither DeSantis nor Trump have formally announced a run for the nation’s highest office. Trump continues to tease a potential run in 2024, most recently at the NRA meeting in Houston.
In terms of the Democratic nomination, President Joe Biden has indicated that he plans to run for a second term in the White House in 2024
You can watch the full interview with Stanage discussing former Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Chicago, the Jan. 6 hearings and more in the player above.