Trump leading DeSantis by 20 points among Florida GOP voters: poll

The poll comes from Florida Atlantic University (FAU). The former president leads DeSantis 50% to 30% in a survey taken of 315 likely Republican voters in the upcoming GOP primary.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the next closest candidate, is polling at 4%.

DeSantis polls better among women than with men when stacked up against Trump. He is down 19 points with women, versus a 21-point gap among male voters. The region where he is suffering the most is Miami-Dade, where the governor is down 70 to 11% against Trump.

In other areas, DeSantis is competitive, such as in Duval, Northwest, and Southwest Florida.

Trump also leads in the Hispanic and black vote in the state if the primary were to be held today, per the survey.

A professor of political science at FAU, Kevin Wagner, said that most of Trump's support comes from a block of "[w]hite working-class voters, who have consistently formed a steadfast base for the former President."

The block seems to be durable, according to Wagner, and makes "persistent support [that] continues to bolster Trump’s strong and steady position within the party.”

Recent polls from other states with strong Republican bases, such as Tennessee, have also shown the durable support that Trump has.

A top spokesman from the DeSantis Never Back Down PAC, Steve Cortes, admitted recently that the former president is a "runaway frontrunner" and that the campaign for DeSantis has a lot of "work to do" to catch up to Trump.

This came after a rally held in Pickens, South Carolina where over 50,000 people reportedly showed up to support Trump's presidential campaign.

Cortes is a former Trump White House advisor and explained that he switched to DeSantis because he seemed more electable.