Founder of Republican Voters Against Trump Sarah Longwell said Sunday on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that 2024 hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was not even being mentioned by Republican voters as someone they want to win the presidential nomination.
Host Kasie Hunt said, “You can’t beat something with nothing. I want to play — Sarah has been talking to Republican voters about Ron DeSantis, and that banner really underscores one of the central problems that we’re hearing from some of the voters. Take a look at what they had to say.”
A focus group member identified as Kevin P. said, “When DeSantis said he was running, I was pretty happy about that, but he’s getting killed in the polls. He’s kind of acted weird. It just seems that he’s lost all his confidence that he used to have when he was the governor.”
A focus group member identified Paul B. said, “There might be a couple of things about his personality that seem a little wooden.”
Longwell said, “I have to tell you, he has been getting killed in the focus groups, and it’s not even that kind of criticism. We always ask people who do you want to see be the 2024 nominee. And six months ago, Ron DeSantis, he would always come up. He was the first one. If it wasn’t Trump, it was him. People don’t even mention him right now. We’ve had two groups in a row where nobody’s even said his name. They’ve said Tim Scott, they’ve said Vivek Ramaswamy, and he’s just not even getting mentioned. There was one guy who liked him. And we said, you know, this fine, is fine. That is brutal.”
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