Ron DeSantis is the Governor of Florida. He has been running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination for something like a year now.
Gavin Newsom is the Governor of California…who, it seems self-evident, is trying to position himself as the alternative to Joe Biden for the 2024 Presidential nomination.
That’s something these two men have in common. And here’s something else they have in common: they are both sinking. Fast.
Want the particulars? Here they are:
-DeSantis started out as the main competition for Donald Trump. But, over recent months, his prospects to displace Trump as the nominee…have gone bye-bye. One look at the fivethirtyeight.com compilation of his poll data should tell you why: he dropped from 42% – 36% favorability in January to the current 48% – 33% negative: a drop of 21%, from +6% to -15%. Yikes.
-And then there is Newsom. His story is told very clearly by the beginning of Madeleine Hubbard’s article for justthenews.com:
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval rating is at the lowest it has ever been among California voters as the Democratic lawmaker continues to amplify his presence on the national stage.
Newsom’s approval rating is at 44% and his disapproval is at 49%, according to a poll released Tuesday by UC Berkley’s Institute of Governmental Studies cosponsored by the Los Angeles Times.
In February, for comparison, his approval rating stood at 55% and his disapproval rating was at 39%. At his height of popularity, Newsom’s approval stood at 64% in September 2020 and his disapproval was its lowest-ever at 36%.
Wow. In roughly the same period as Ron DeSantis’s drop, Newsom has dropped the same distance: he has gone from +16% to -5% – a drop of 21%. And, to make matters even worse, this drop occurred in his own state. How do you figure that bodes for his national prospects?
Who would ever have suspected that Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Newsom would share common ground on anything? But if these polls are accurate (admittedly that is always a bit “if”)? Politically, they are in exactly the same boat.
Too bad for them it’s The Titanic.
