Ron DeSantis slavery controversy undermines key advantage he had over Trump

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis‘ controversy over Florida’s new Black history curriculum could undermine the narrow advantage he had over former President Donald Trump with Black voters.

DeSantis’ Department of Education in June approved a new curriculum that states middle schoolers in Florida should be taught that slaves learned some skills that could be used for their “personal benefit,” setting off a wave of criticism, including from prominent Black Republicans. The controversy comes as his campaign faces a series of challenges, including financial woes and declining poll numbers, though he still outpolls other non-Trump Republicans.

“What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating,” GOP South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who is also running for president, told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “So I would hope that every person in our country — and certainly running for president — would appreciate that.”

Representative Byron Donalds, a Republican representing parts of southwest Florida, tweeted that while he agrees with most of the standards, the requirement surrounding slavery “is wrong & needs to be adjusted.”

DeSantis has repeatedly defended the new curriculum despite the pushback.

“I think it’s very clear that these guys did a good job with those standards,” DeSantis told reporters. “It wasn’t anything that was politically motivated. These are serious scholars.”

“That particular provision about the skills, that was in spite of slavery, not because of it,” the Florida governor added. “The AP course has made that same point, other courses have made that same point.”

While neither Trump nor DeSantis is expected to win a substantial percentage of the Black vote in the 2024 general election, the criticism over the curriculum threatens to erase DeSantis’ slight advantage among Black voters against Trump, who outperformed his Republican predecessors among Black voters. Despite that overperformance, President Joe Biden still handedly won Black voters by a wide margin against Trump in 2020.

Polls conducted prior to the recent controversy suggested that Black Republicans were more open to supporting DeSantis than Trump, and the governor outperformed Black voters in Florida in 2022 versus Trump in 2020.

According to CNN‘s exit polls, DeSantis won 13 percent of Black voters during his reelection in 2022. While his Democratic challenger former Representative Charlie Crist easily won the majority of Black voters, DeSantis still outperformed Trump, who garnered the support of only 10 percent of Florida’s Black voters in 2020.

Notably, DeSantis overperformed Trump with every demographic, winning the state by 19 percentage points compared to the former president’s roughly 3-point victory.

More Black voters have been open to supporting DeSantis for president compared to Trump, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted among 1,225 Black voters from April 28 to May 12, 2023.

The survey found that 78 percent of Black voters would not consider voting for Trump in a matchup against Biden, while 67 percent have completely ruled out backing DeSantis. That’s an 11-point margin in DeSantis’ favor. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

A McLaughlin & Associates poll of 454 likely GOP primary voters conducted from July 19 to 24 found DeSantis substantially overperforming among Black voters. While Trump held a 40-point lead in a head-to-head matchup against DeSantis, only a slim majority of Black voters said they would back Trump in 2024.

Fifty-three percent of Black respondents said they would back Trump, while 47 said they planned to vote for DeSantis—making Black voters DeSantis’ strongest racial demographic in the primary.

Newsweek reached out to DeSantis’ campaign for comment via email.

On Friday, DeSantis dismissed criticism from prominent Black Republicans. He told reporters in Iowa that they had accepted Democrats‘ “false narratives” about the curriculum.

“Part of the reason our country has struggled is because DC Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept the lies that are perpetrated by the left,” he said.

DeSantis’ embrace of culture war issues, including his stance on the ways that race and African American history should be discussed in public schools, has previously faced criticism from Black voters.

A HIT Strategies poll—conducted among 1,003 registered Black voters from February 16 to 19, 2023—found that only 14 percent of Black voters agreed with the DeSantis administration’s decision to block Florida schools from teaching a specific Advanced Placement African American History course, citing its lack of “historical accuracy” and “educational value.”

Sixty-five percent of respondents said they disagreed with the decision, while 20 percent said they neither agreed nor disagreed. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

“If the only way Governor DeSantis is able to garner attention from the masses is when he enrages the Black community, I don’t see that as a winning strategy for his presidential campaign,” Whitely Yates, director of diversity and engagement for the Indiana Republican State Committee, told The Hill for an article published on Saturday.

“There are prominent Republicans, both Black and white, that see and take issue with the wording of this section and I think that they are well within their rights,” Yates said. “No one looks at other marginalized groups and genocides and attempts to pick out the silver lining in the genocide, the silver lining of the atrocity.”