DeSantis Notches Highest Florida Approval Rating in Four Years on Day Trump Surrenders in New York… Does Anyone Care?

On Tuesday, Donald Trump surrendered to authorities in New York City. He will reportedly face 34 counts related to the falsification of business records for payments he made to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to buy her silence about a 2006 affair she had with Trump shortly after the birth of his only child with his third wife.

Also on Tuesday: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) notched his highest approval rating in four years in pollster Mason-Dixon’s Sunshine State survey, with 59% expressing satisfaction with his job performance and 39% expressing dissatisfaction. Independent voters actually approved by an even more impressive 21-point margin. Hispanics approved by a 15-point margin.

DeSantis has exemplified popular conservative governance in Florida even as Donald Trump continues to bring shame to his family and fans. Is the contrast even relevant to the national race for the GOP nomination?

For most any other politician, an impending indictment accompanied by several other criminal investigations into their conduct would be a kiss of death. But for Trump, it’s a boon because it serves as a reminder to so many of just how much they stand to benefit from his continued presence on the national stage.

The hard truth is that the only people who want Trump to secure the nomination as much as the effusive admirers who stand to secure jobs and speaking gigs and TV panel appearances and traffic are the adversaries who stand to secure jobs and speaking gigs and TV panel appearances and traffic.

Both the Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway and the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman would crawl over broken glass to make sure Trump stays in the limelight and they remain cable news contributors. Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and J.D. Vance (R-OH), two Republicans on opposite ends of some of the ideological spectrum, have both abandoned their dignity to back Trump in an effort to put a president they boast a personal relationship with back in office. They’re joined — at least in supporting his bid for the nomination — by every Democrat running for dogcatcher in the U-S of A, all of whom know for a fact that he’ll boost their own chances of winning.

That includes, by the way, President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly expressed his hope that he gets a rematch. “You’re trying to tempt me now,” remarked Biden with a mirthful laugh when asked about the possibility. “Why would I not run against Donald Trump for the nominee? That’ll increase the prospect of running.”

As Michael Luciano observed yesterday, Trump’s professed enemies in the press “went ‘full white Ford Bronco’ à la O.J. Simpson being driven on the highways of Los Angeles by Al Cowlings,” as Trump traveled to and through New York on Monday. The spectacle was so degrading that CNN’s Jake Tapper found himself trying to justify the networks’ collective focus on the pseudo-event in an on-air monologue.

“I know that media critics are taking issue with the way a lot of news networks are covering this, but I have to say: You know, as we watch Donald Trump’s limo drive on the FDR, this is unprecedented. We’ve never seen anything like this in the history of this country,” said Tapper.

But the networks panned their cameras with every curve the limo took so that it drew admiring as well as contemptuous eyeballs, all of them equally profitable. For as long as he’s alive, the former president will continue to be a national fascination, to the benefit of thousands of the most powerful Americans in politics and media.

What does the opinion of the little people in Florida who know Trump and DeSantis best matter?

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.