So much for Favorite Son status mattering much.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is headed for a third-place finish in Florida's Republican Primary, a result representing the huge gap between the promise of his presidential campaign last Spring and reality now, with that operation consigned to the dustbin of history.
With 15% of the vote in, the Governor has 4% of the vote, with Donald Trump at 77% and Nikki Haley at 18%.
These numbers will change over time. But what's clear at this writing is that a man who got nearly 3/5 of the vote in the 2022 Governor's race did not translate that support to his home state Primary, where the voters who know him best could have cast protest votes that showed that even with him out of the race, he still had support.
Upon leaving the race, DeSantis said "a majority of Republican Primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance." And indeed, that's the case in Florida, where the state party endorsed Trump weeks before voters got a chance to weigh in.
With the result preordained, DeSantis' performance is closer to the post-campaign suspension number of Jeb Bush in 2016 (1.8%) than the 27% Marco Rubio got.
The Governor's Office did not respond to inquiries about where and when he voted in Tuesday's Primary. During the afternoon, DeSantis was on The Dana Show, where he suggested he might send Haitian refugees to Martha's Vineyard. He did not mention the Florida Primary during that appearance.
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