welcome to in inside politics. i m john king in washington. releasing right now, a brand new snapshot of the republican presidential race. our new poll finds donald trump up big, but it s an important but. voters say they are open to supp supporting ron desantis, who presses the start button on his campaign tonight. the former lawyers want an audience with the attorney general to complain about the special counsel and his investigation. and just moments ago, the house speaker saud he s sending negotiators to the white house. he insists he s conceded a lot. this happening as they pull back the curtain on how the former chief of staff is steering hard right conservatives in this fight over whether they pay their bills. we begin with a big day in the republican 2024 nomination chase. the florida governor ron desantis officially enters the fray tonight. anunsing his run in a conversation with the elon musk. it s a big play on the social media platform critical to donald trump
teeth a ya mitchell join us. is the glass half full or half empty in the sense that he s by far the leading alternative to trump? he s just not where he was at the begin ning of the year wher he was just after the election. people were blaming trump in the rear view mirror, he had not been indicted in new york. on launch day, where are we? glass is half full and half empty. if possible. ron desantis has been absolutely pounded, as david just mentioned, by the former president. the money that he s spent in ads, the way that he has attacked ron desantis on social media and in other opportunities that he s had even on the stump, that s been largely met with crickets from ron desantis. first of all, because he wasn t
is not an option for them. that s a rough play. and mike pence, who we saw a slim majority say might consider him, 45% said they would not. i want to show you where this race has done overtime. you remember back in our march poll, they were running neck and neck with each other. trump still out in front. but look how much that lead has widened for form ir president trump to now. this is what the last several months have been for ron desantis. he s not been an official candidate and trump has been hammering away at him. this is what occurred. today ron desantis tries to change this equation. david schalian, thank you fo kicking us off. dana bash, phil mattingly and
an actual candidate, but also because at least until right this moment, it s been unclear how ron desantis is going to handle the trump factor. and that has been sort of back and forth. sometimes he s kind of ignored him. other times he s leaned into responding to or criticizing donald trump. that s all going to change presumably tonight when he actually makes a formal announcement. and i frame it that way because it matters in this kind of race that david just showed, where right now, it is a two-person race. it s very fluid. others have room to run and to run up in the polls, but right now, it is between those two. you can go back and study these things and ask yourself the question do the old rules apply. you see a front runner and say, whoa. but then you see some weakness. if you look at the 85%, will republican voters open to ron desantis, even though more than half of them nationally, we