Ron DeSantis president odds for 2024 puts the Governor of Florida among the front-runners – despite him not yet announcing his presidential campaign. In fact, the current current US Presidential Election odds put Ron DeSantis right alongside Donald Trump for most likely to win in 2024. So, DeSantis is a strong contender for the 2024 presidential Republican primary.
Ron DeSantis Odds to Be the Next President
| NAME | ODDS | PROBABILITY | CHANGE | ||
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Joe Biden | +133 | 43% | ||
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Donald Trump | +178 | 36% | ||
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Gavin Newsom | +900 | 10% | ||
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Ron DeSantis | +1011 | 9% | ||
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Kamala Harris | +2400 | 4% | ||
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Vivek Ramaswamy | +3233 | 3% | ||
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Pete Buttigieg | +9900 | 1% | ||
 |
Tim Scott | +9900 | 1% | ||
Implied probabilities are calculated using data offered by PredictIt.
Last Updated: 2023-09-22 05:00:02 PDT.
DeSantis has established his conservative credentials. His attacks on the LGBT community, war against “woke” companies, and trollish behavior mimic the features that reactionary conservatives loved about Trump. However, DeSantis has a calm veneer that Trump lacks. Trump’s impulsiveness privately bothers ranking Republicans. Meanwhile, DeSantis gives them a candidate who can tweak his voice for the general election while still offering an olive branch to reactionary Republicans as well.
What is Ron DeSantis’ Political History?
Ron DeSantis was a lawyer who first entered politics in 2012. He was a House Representative until 2018, when he successfully ran for Governor of Florida. During his time as a congressman, he launched a bid for one of his state’s Senate seats. However, he decided to re-run for his House seat after Marco Rubio decided to run for his Senate seat again.
Ron DeSantis’ brief Senate bid reveals much about what he would bring to a presidential run, and highlights his current odds to win the 2024 election for president. He began as a Tea Party Republican, placing him firmly in the far-right wing of the Republican Party, and his policies as governor include resisting mask mandates, targeting LGBTQ Floridians, and engaging in other culture war issues.
DeSantis has increasingly embraced the reactionary wing of the party that has supported his political career so far. He has pandered to them as Florida’s governor, and Ron DeSantis’ president odds for 2024 mean bettors expect his campaign to stay in that lane.
Biden Vs. Ron DeSantis President Odds for 2024
DeSantis polls well against President Biden. Biden has struggled to broadcast his administration’s accomplishments. Part of that is the economic hardship that has engulfed Biden’s first two years, drowning out his infrastructure package, halt on federal executions, and ban on surprise medical billing for non-emergency care.
However, Biden could make a comeback if the economy resumes growth in 2024. Voters have short memories, so election year economic performance is critical to securing votes. A weak economy for three years and a strong one for the last year boosted Reagan’s 1984 performance. Biden could experience a similar boost if inflation is tamed by 2023 as economists predict.
What Is DeSantis’ Greatest Weakness?
Dissent within the Republican Party could derail DeSantis’ 2024 campaign. DeSantis winning the Republican nomination would mean Trump coming second.
Donald Trump cannot handle second place. The January 6 attack on the Capitol happened because Trump refused to accept his loss to Joe Biden. He won’t accept a loss to DeSantis. If he lost, Trump could launch an independent run or petulantly try to call himself the “real” Republican candidate. (They’re not necessarily mutually exclusive, either.)
However he chose to run, Trump would split Republican votes. Republicans would have a harder time differentiating themselves from Donald Trump’s conservatism. Democrats would have an easier time broadcasting a consistent message.
Inner-party turmoil contributed to Jimmy Carter’s loss against Ronald Reagan. Carter faced a primary challenge from Joe Kennedy, who was part of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing. Kennedy lost his presidential bid, but the months of uncertainty in the Democratic Party gave a well-supported Reagan a head start in the presidential campaign.
An Independent Trump run would be worse for DeSantis. Kennedy conceded his loss in the Democratic primary. (It was late in the race and uncomfortable.) Trump coming in second would not allow the Republican Party to craft a cohesive message focusing on their policies and attacking Democratic policies. Instead, the Republican nominee would have to focus as much or more of his messaging on fending off Trump.
What Are the Different Types of Republicans?
The Republican Party has a few factions within it, although it is more uniform than the Democratic Party. Republican factions have more overlap between them than progressives do with moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin.
Establishment Republicans are figures like Mitch McConnell or Mitt Romney. Their rhetoric revolves around small government, fiscal responsibility, and traditional family values. Modern establishment Republicans were often radicals themselves when they came to power during the Reagan Revolution. That’s when the Republican Party moved noticeably to the right. (That rightward move pushed Obama’s former Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, to register as an Independent.)
The conservative wing of the Republican Party is more conservative, and in some cases reactionary, than the establishment Republicans. They include hardline Christians who believe the United States is fundamentally a Christian nation. (Multiple Federalist papers, founding father writings, and Jackson-era conflicts refute this claim.) Anyone claiming to be part of the “moral majority” is probably part of this group, overtly religious or not. Mike Pence is a quiet but reactionary member of this wing.
The libertarian wing is a niche group of Republicans who take hardline stances on government intervention in the economy. Arguments that the Fed’s interest rates can mitigate economic disasters fall on deaf ears to these Republicans. Ron Johnson and Rand Paul are easily identifiable members of this group.
Finally, the reactionary wing includes the Trump Republicans, alt-right, and authoritarian elements. They’re not the same, but they agree on key anti-democratic principles. They don’t believe that Biden’s presidential win was legitimate. To varying degrees, they supported the Capitol rioters. While they aren’t the only Republicans to profess some of these views, the reactionaries are the true believers who pressure moderate candidates into expressing doubt about the 2020 election’s legitimacy.
Ron DeSantis 2024 Odds FAQs
Ron DeSantis is a Republican. Further, he’s part of the party’s conservative wing. He advocates a small government position. Voters will have to analyze for themselves whether the areas of the government he wants to downsize really are as bloated as he claims.
Ron DeSantis has not announced his intentions to run for president. He is favored to run for a few reasons. He’s the popular governor of Florida. CNN reports that his anti-mask and COVID restriction policies were months ahead of where public opinion would go. Even though his reactionary rhetoric targets conservatives, the policies that lined up with public opinion over time have given him a boost.
The primary election chooses a party’s nominee. Republicans, Democrats, and third parties have their own primaries. The general election is where voters choose between the candidates the major parties have put forward.
The 2024 Presidential Election will be on November 5, 2024. It’ll be the first Tuesday of November, like the other presidential elections before it.
The Republican National Convention will be in the summer of 2024. Its date has yet to be decided. At the convention, Republicans will vote on their presidential candidate for the general election.
Bonus.com displays data from PredictIt. PredictIt is a prediction market where users can trade bets on which candidate or party will win an election. The bet prices are the market’s probability of a candidate or a party winning. So the Ron DeSantis 2024 odds come from one market’s estimation. Bonus also uses historical and polling data for political analysis.
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