Florida Voters Rank DeSantis' Pandemic Response Higher than Biden and Trump's
By Anthony Leonardi
April 13, 2021
Likely Florida voters largely approve of the way Gov. Ron DeSantis has handled the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a new Cygnal survey of likely general election voters, just over 60% of voters approve of DeSantis’s performance, a higher ranking than those given to former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden. Trump and Biden received 48.9% and 57.8% approval from voters on their responses to coronavirus respectively.
Among those surveyed, 74.4% of likely Florida voters said they approve of DeSantis’s plan to “put seniors first for vaccination priority” and 71.7% said they approve of the Republican governor’s move to make Florida “one of the first states in the country where anyone age 18 or older could get the COVID-19 vaccine if they choose.”
A significant majority of likely Florida voters, 58.1%, also approve of DeSantis’s move to keep the Florida economy open amid the coronavirus. 27.7% disapproved and 12% said they “neither approve or disapprove.”
The poll also found that DeSantis’s overall approval rating among likely Florida voters surpasses Trump and Biden. Among those polled, 54.8% hold a favorable opinion of DeSantis while only 49.4% and 47.0% respectively view Biden and Trump favorably.
The survey follows a widely criticized report from CBS’s 60 Minutes that implicated Publix Supermarkets with the state’s coronavirus vaccination roll-out. The story connected a $100,000 donation made by Publix to a DeSantis reelection PAC and suggested it amounted to a “pay to play” scandal.
The story was criticized by several Florida Democrats, including Jared Moskowitz, the Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and David Kerner, the Democratic Mayor of Palm Beach County.
“@60Minutes I said this before and I’ll say it again. @Publix was recommended by @FLSERT and @HealthyFla as the other pharmacies were not ready to start. Period! Full Stop! No one from the Governors office suggested Publix. It’s just absolute malarkey,” Moskowitz wrote in a tweet.
“The reporting was not just based on bad information – it was intentionally false. I know this because I offered to provide my insight into Palm Beach County’s vaccination efforts and 60 Minutes declined,” ” Kerner wrote in a statement. “We have confronted this pandemic for over a year. Our residents, like all Americans, are tired. And the media is making it worse. They are hellbent on dividing us for cheap views and clicks. 60 Minutes should be ashamed,” he later said.
CBS’s 60 Minutes later defended its reporting in a statement. “For over 50 year, the facts reported by 60 Minutes have often stirred debate and prompted strong reactions. Our story Sunday night speaks for itself,” the statement reads.
According to the survey, only 45.3% of likely Florida voters were familiar with the story.
But after watching the report, 52.3% said they “trusted” DeSantis to tell the truth about the Sunshine state’s vaccine distribution over “the media,” which only received 27.3%.
Over 20% of likely Florida voters were unsure. Likely voters also gave Publix a high favorability rating of 88.1%. 9.5% said they viewed the supermarket chain unfavorably.
Among those surveyed, 39.2% of likely voters said they were registered Republicans and 37.6% said they were registered Democrats. 19.3% said they have no party affiliation.
The survey was conducted between April 9-11 among 800 likely Floridian voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.46 percentage points.
