A new poll in Ohio places Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in third place among Republican candidates in the crucial state.

The Ohio Northern University poll ranked former President Donald Trump first with 64.1% support.

Vivek Ramaswamy came in second with 11,8 percent, followed by Ron DeSantis with 8,8 percent.

Former Vice President Mike Pence had 6,4 percent support, while former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley had 2,7 percent, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had 1,8 percent, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson had 0.8 percent support.

2024 Ohio Republican Primary:

Trump 64%
Ramaswamy 12%
DeSantis 9%
Pence 6%
Haley 3%
Christie 2%
Hutchinson 1%

Ohio Northern University, 7/17-26https://t.co/sn585Hp39P

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) July 28, 2023

The survey of 675 Ohio residents had an error margin of 3.7%. 44 percent of participants who self-identified as intending to vote in the Republican primary said they intended to do so.

Since 2000, the winner of the Republican presidential primaries has typically gone on to become the party’s nominee. The one exception occurred in 2016, when former Ohio governor John Kasich ran for president and won the primary in his native state.

Former President George W. Bush carried the Ohio Republican primary in 2000 and again as an unopposed incumbent in 2004. In 2008, the late Senator John McCain of Arizona won the Ohio election, while in 2012, the current Senator Mitt Romney of Utah triumphed. Trump, the incumbent, won the 2020 election.

Philip Bump wrote in The Washington Post that third-place polling finishes have resulted in “DeSantis is just another candidate.”

“This isn’t just bad for DeSantis in that he hasn’t overtaken Trump. It’s bad for him in that this suggests a downward path: from clear second-place candidate to member of the second tier. And for the candidate long pitched as the viable non-Trump candidate, being less viable is a big problem,” he wrote.

Rich Lowry, the editor-in-chief of National Review, discussed DeSantis’ transition from an extremely effective and politically popular governor to an upstream presidential candidate in an article for Politico.

Two large polls with Pres Trump excluded. Vivek Ramaswamy leading Ron DeSantis in both. pic.twitter.com/ADFCOWLy6v

— Top Secret (@ICU1010) July 21, 2023

More on this story via The Western Journal:

“In Florida, DeSantis had a pragmatic side. He emphasized protecting and cleaning up Florida’s waters. He paid teachers more. Both of these initiatives showed up in that reelection ad. He was effective at handling the response to Hurricane Ian. In the beginning, his different posture on Covid was a data-driven approach based on what seemed likely to work,” he wrote. CONTINUE READING…