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Ron DeSantis Is Losing Popularity Contest With Disney [1]

['Darragh Roche', 'Ken Cuccinelli', 'Monica Crowley']

Date: 2023-05-04 09:19:42-04:00

Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be losing a popularity contest with Disney after the company filed a federal lawsuit against his state last month.

A Navigator Research poll published on Thursday showed that Disney is far more popular among registered voters than the Florida governor—including among crucial independent voters.

DeSantis is widely expected to enter the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination but he has not yet formally declared his candidacy, while some prominent GOP figures have questioned his feud with Disney.

The survey found that 64 percent of registered voters held a favorable view of Disney, while 31 percent had an unfavorable view of the company and 5 percent answered "don't know."

L: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks in Tokyo, on April 24, 2023. R: Mickey Mouse poses for a photo during the red carpet for the premiere of "Disney On Ice" at Auditorio Nacional on July 6, 2022, in Mexico City. A recent poll shows that DeSantis is losing a popularity contest against Disney after the company filed a federal lawsuit against Florida. KIMIMASA MAYAMA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images; Jaime Nogales/Medios y Media/Getty Images

DeSantis proved much less popular with poll respondents as just 35 percent said they had a favorable view of the Republican governor, while 46 percent had an unfavorable view and a further 19 percent didn't know.

Navigator Research also found that Disney's net favorability is up since May 2022—from plus 32 favorable to plus 33 favorable—but DeSantis is down in the same measure from minus 4 last year to minus 11 in April 2023.

Disney also had a higher favorability among independent voters, a key constituency that President Joe Biden won in 2020 and was an important part of his election victory.

The poll found that 66 percent of independents had a favorable view of Disney, compared to 24 percent who had an unfavorable view and 10 percent who responded "don't know."

By contrast, just 25 percent of independents said they had a favorable view of DeSantis, 44 percent said they had an unfavorable view of the Republican and 31 percent didn't know.

The Navigator Research poll was conducted among 1,002 registered voters from April 20 to 24. The pollster has a B/C rating from poll tracker FiveThirtyEight.

In what may be an unsurprising result, the survey found that DeSantis is viewed more positively among Republicans than Disney with 67 percent of Republicans having a favorable view of him.

A further 18 percent of Republican voters had an unfavorable view of DeSantis and 15 percent didn't know.

Nonetheless, 43 percent of Republican respondents polled said they had a favorable view of Disney, while 53 percent held an unfavorable view and 4 percent responded "don't know."

Newsweek reached out to DeSantis via email for comment.

Disney's federal lawsuit against the state of Florida accuses DeSantis of trying to "weaponize government power" over the company by appointing a board that nullified agreements that gave Disney control over expanding its resort in the state.

That decision came amidst an ongoing feud with Disney, sparked when the company publicly opposed Florida's controversial Parental Rights in Education bill, nicknamed "Don't Say Gay," which restricts discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in the classroom. DeSantis signed the bill into law in March 2022.

Several high-profile Republicans, including presidential candidates, have criticized DeSantis' feud with Disney. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy suggested DeSantis "sit down and negotiate and talk" with the company in an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box on April 27.

"If there's differences, you can always find ways that you can solve this problem. If you think that the only action is to go to court, I believe that's wrong," the speaker said.

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[1] Url: https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-losing-popularity-contest-disney-1798329

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