2024 ELECTION/POLLS/RON DESANTIS: “On the home turf of his chief Republican rival and in his adopted state, former President Donald J. Trump told a sprawling conservative gathering in Florida on Saturday night that it was futile for Gov. Ron DeSantis to keep battling him for the party’s presidential nomination…
Mr. Trump, who leads Mr. DeSantis by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, dismissed Mr. DeSantis’s early momentum before he officially entered the race in May as a mirage.”
-Neil Vigdor, “In Florida, Trump Says DeSantis Has No Path to Victory,” nytimes.com, July 16, 2023