DeSantis receives 7-figure checks from top GOP donors
The all but declared presidential candidacy of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took a big leap forward in the money primary this month with some seven-month checks, or excuse me, seven figure checks from top Republican donors. According to records reviewed by CNN, DeSantis' operation got a $2.5 million check from one donor and a million dollars apiece from two more. CNN also reports his total cash on hand now puts him on about equal footing with the former president. This comes on the heels of the President's Day campaign style stops with New York, Philadelphia and Chicago area police officers. This weekend he's scheduled to host a three-day donor retreat a few minutes drive from the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate. And then next week another potential campaign signifier, a new memoir, comes out followed by a future book tour.
Joined out by our senior data reporter Harry Enten with more. So does it surprise you that DeSantis is getting these big checks without even announcing it? No, I'm not surprised at all Anderson. The reason I'm not surprised at all is look how much money he raised during his 2022 bid, reelection bid for Florida governor, north of $200 million dollars, north of $200 million dollars. And look how much Trump raised in essentially the first, you know, month and a half of his campaign ending at the end of 2022. Only about $10 million dollars, in fact, a little bit less than that. And you know, money isn't everything in politics and a presidential bid, but you can't have a successful campaign without having money on it. He's been viewed as a national candidate or a potential national candidate for quite a while.
That's exactly right. And that's why I think he raised so much in 2022 is because there were a lot of people who were trying to get in on the ground floor, right? And so to me, this is just an indication that Trump is not necessarily going to have the easiest time sort of dispelling of disposing of Ron DeSantis from the field. Just in terms of polls, he's also already on the former president's heels, isn't he? He's very much so on the former president's heels. I mean, you know, we had two pretty good high quality polls that were national polls that came out in the last few weeks. One from Quinnipiac, one from Mommeth. And what do you see right there? You see one with Trump with just a five point lead, but DeSantis all the way up to 36 percent. You see another one, Mommeth.
And look at Haley and Pence way back, way back. And I think this is the thing, you know, there's all this thought, you know, oh my God, all these candidates are going to get in and it might split the anti-Trump vote, right? This is something we saw in 2016. But here's the thing I want to tell you, Anderson, if you take one thing away from me, it is this. I want to take one thing away from you. If you want to take one thing, I hope you want to take two or three things away from me, to be honest. But either way, if you're to take one thing away from me is that the anti-Trump vote this year is not split as much as it was in 2016. DeSantis at this point, you know, at 36, 33 percent of the vote.
If you looked essentially at this point, you know, three months after Trump declared in during his 2016 bed, the top leading candidate was in fact Ben Carson, who was only at about 17 percent in Quinnipiac's poll. So at this point, Ron DeSantis at 36 percent, much higher than the top anti-Trump. What happens when you look at Trump versus DeSantis one-on-one? Yeah. Look at this. What do you see? You see DeSantis jump out ahead. There you go. You see it.
Ron DeSantis at 53 percent. Donald Trump at 40 percent. So I think the idea essentially is, is if in fact Ron DeSantis gets into a one-on-one with Trump, that's major trouble for the former president. And is there other evidence that Trump's no longer the as popular as he was? Yeah. I mean, look, if you would, we always said, oh, Trump has this 80 percent approval rating. You know, one has a higher approval rating with the Republican Party than Donald Trump does. But look at the net favorability ratings.
It's favorable minus unfavorable. Look at Ron DeSantis on your screen right now. Where is he? He's plus into the 70s. Look at where Donald Trump is below that, below that. So the fact is at this particular point, Donald Trump isn't the most popular candidate. Although a lot of people don't know really much about Ron DeSantis, that he's more the idea of Ron DeSantis. Maybe it is the idea.
And that, I think, is the one question. When Ron DeSantis actually gets into this race, will the sort of ideal of Ron DeSantis actually match the realism of Ron DeSantis? Wow. Harry Antons, well said. Thank you.