Free Republic

Two new polls from a top Republican polling firm — provided exclusively to Axios — find Florida Gov. DeSantis is running more competitively with former President Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire than he is faring in national surveys. Driving the news: The surveys, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies from March 21 to 23 for an outside client (not a candidate or super PAC) found DeSantis leading Trump by eight points (45%-37%) in a head-to-head matchup in Iowa and tied with Trump (39%-39%) in New Hampshire.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prizes preparation and the way it allows him to control his political narrative. But suddenly, he was on the verge of going off message. He had traveled to a Central Florida warehouse this past week to promote a $2 billion tax cut proposal when he was confronted with the inevitable: an especially ugly attack from former President Donald J. Trump that seemed to warrant a strong response. Mr. Trump had insinuated on social media that Mr. DeSantis behaved inappropriately with high school girls while he was a teacher in his early 20s. As a reporter...

- Trump took swipes on social media at potential 2024 rivals Govs. DeSantis and Youngkin. - It's been speculated that the Florida and Virginia governors could seek the GOP nomination in 2024. - Though he has not said he's running for re-election, Trump once again teased he may make another White House run.

When President Donald Trump takes the stage at a major conservative conference in Dallas on Saturday he will likely have just received a boost to his 2024 plans in the form of a straw poll that will almost certainly rank him as the clear favorite among attendees. But that is not the end of the story as far as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose star has been on the rise this year. Attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference want him first to continue the work he is doing in Florida before taking up the national MAGA torch in the...

The concept of America First embodies the American people’s aspirational goals to see policies that primarily benefit them, especially in an era when it feels as if they are being overshadowed by special-interest groups, corporate lobbyists and foreign agendas. It’s undoubtedly linked with President Donald Trump, but the question remains for the 2024 election: Can this idea thrive with someone else’s leadership?

How inevitable is a third consecutive nomination of Donald Trump? Partisan commentators, when it suits their purposes, tend to assume it is so. Republicans who remain supporters of the 45th president point to data showing he remains popular among his party’s voters. They also recall how loudly heralded attempts to deprive him of his first nomination, in 2016, foundered. Democrats who regard Trump’s election as an inexplicable black swan event, or even a putsch, have an obvious interest in elevating his chances. So do the cable news channels, which, hungry for ratings, gave him the equivalent of billions of dollars’...

Conservative attorney George Conway, who is now a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, predicts that Trump will run for president again and says Ron DeSantis may be the only candidate that can beat him one-on-one.

Ron DeSantis is the clear winner over Donald Trump among Florida Republicans when asked who they would like as the GOP presidential nomination 2024, according to a poll. The survey, conducted by Blueprint Polling, found 50.9 percent of those asked back or lean towards the Florida governor, with the former president behind on 38.6 percent.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is within single digits of ex-President Donald Trump in a new national poll, the closest he’s been in this or any other reputable poll — and that’s before Tuesday’s bombshell testimony. A sample of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents to a new Yahoo! News/YouGov poll were asked “Who would you rather see as the Republican nominee for President in 2024?” and given a choice between Trump and DeSantis. Among registered voters, 45 percent prefer Trump, while 36 percent prefer DeSantis — a nine-point difference that normally wouldn’t seem very close. But for Trump, in a reputable Republican...

Based on a casual reading of the polls, Donald Trump looks to have smooth sailing to the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and the chance to erase the stink of losing to Joe Biden that he so covets. But if that’s the case, why does Trump seem so panicky these days? Simple: Trump is in trouble, and — when you dig into the numbers — his grip on the GOP nomination is getting more tenuous. It is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) who has all the momentum.

Former President Trump isn’t sure if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, but he says he’s confident that he would beat him if he does. “I don’t know if Ron is running, and I don’t ask him,” Trump told The New Yorker in an interview. “It’s his prerogative. I think I would win.”