Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is far and away former President Donald Trump‘s nearest 2024 challenger, but a brutal tidbit of reporting from Politico illustrates the steep hill he has to climb.

Trump spoke at the annual Faith & Freedom Coalition conference on Friday night, and on Saturday morning, Politico’s Natalie Allison and Meridith Mcgraw published a deep dive on the group’s approach to Trump’s potential 2024 run entitled “How evangelical Christians are sizing up the 2024 GOP race for president.”

The thrust of the piece is that the Ralph Reed-led coalition is an influential proving ground for GOP candidates, and intends to stay neutral in the primary.

But buried in the report is a revealing nugget about DeSantis, who was one of several 2024 contenders who did not appear (emphasis mine):

Also missing were past speakers and possible 2024 contenders like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

Here at the Road to Majority conference, the crowd was most eager to hear from the ex-president. But they were also open to thinking about alternatives, like DeSantis — although multiple people interviewed for this story mispronounced his name as “DeSantos.”

“Multiple people interviewed for this story mispronounced his name as ‘DeSantos’” is not exactly a great bumper sticker, and it illustrates the challenge DeSantis and other Republican hopefuls face.

In poll after poll, the Florida governor basically owns the field in a Trump-free primary, and while it is early, that dynamic has only solidified over time. And DeSantis’s support is as deep as it is wide, relative to the non-Trump candidates. In one poll from UMass Amherst conducted by YouGov, Trump led DeSantis 55% to 20%, but DeSantis receive support from 69 percent of Republicans who listed him as either their first (20%), second (37%) or third (12%) choice.

But aside from sketchy polls from embittered anti-Trump folks like John Bolton, Trump crushes DeSantis by a lot, and everyone else by a lot more. If Trump does run again, it will be a tall order for DeSantis to even compete, and if Trump doesn’t run, DeSantis still has to get lots of people to know his actual name.

The post Politico Reports Brutal Nugget That People at Faith & Freedom Conference Keep Mispronouncing Ron DeSantis’s Name first appeared on Mediaite.

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