Will Ron DeSantis win re-election?

[Donerail]

Yup, and it won't be close. I think he will come close to 60% against some low profile Dem.

low iq post imo, last candidate to break 60% statewide was... Nelson '06? Even if Dems run a "low profile" candidate (which they won't) it would be extraordinarily difficult to do as bad as Katherine Harris.

[Skill and Chance]

Almost surely.  Like, between the Dem midterm, incumbency, and how hard Florida trended R this year, it would take a Roy Moore level scandal to defeat him. 

Fried should try to get reelected, hope a Republican becomes president in 2025, and go for the open seat in 2026.  The governor elected in 2026 also gets to fill 3 of the 7 state supreme court seats (including the 1 liberal, though, so control is not at stake).

[AlterEgo]

The Titanium Tilt R curse is real.

Do you think he'll be able to come back to positive approval, and do you think some of that drop is from Republican Seniors scared of covid?

My main point is that I don't think DeSantis necessarily needs to get back to positive approval. As I stated, that same FAU poll showing him 5 points underwater showed Trump 7 points underwater, and Trump went on to win the state by 3 percent. So, I don't think he needs to.

Can he? Absolutely. He'll never see those lofty numbers he had pre-January, but he could get back to a slight positive approval. Voters have short memories, and how much will they care about all this in 2022 if everything else goes well?

Is it Republican seniors scared of COVID? I don't think we're really seeing that. There was certainly some talk of that in the MSM leading up to the presidential election, but that didn't really bear out. Sumter County (home of the Villages, heavily white, retirees) was supposed to be the bellweather for that, but Trump only lost 1% there this year (68.7 2016, 67.8 2020).

If we go back to polling, we see that even as late as last Dec. DeSantis was +6 even among registered Dems in the state. Even now, his approval among Republicans is still in the 88% range. But, of course it has absolutely cratered with registered Dems and has fallen to slight disapproval among NPAs.