College-educated Republicans have now joined their non-college-educated cohorts in supporting former President Donald J. Trump over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, according to three new Republican primary polls and previously unpublished data from McClatchyDC.
DeSantis dropped a whopping 18 points amongst college-educated Rs over the first half of 2023 according to Morning Consult, while Ipsos concurred the governor had more than halved his support amongst the same group since mid-March. Quinnipiac showed DeSantis with 51 percent of support amongst the college-educated in February, down to just 29 percent today.
“College-educated Republicans were looking for an alternative to Donald Trump, and they initially thought Governor DeSantis, after his 19-point win in Florida, made for a good one,” Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster, told the Miami Herald.. “But the way he has run his campaign, constantly tacking to the right, has turned off many of those people who were initially attracted to him.”
Ayres comments imply the college-educated group were looking for more of a common sense candidate to support, and found DeSantis to be far more ideological, and far less pragmatic than they originally hoped. The news comes as DeSantis announces yet another campaign shake-up, with Donald Trump now performing better with non-college and college-educated Republicans.