I have a theory about how DeSantis is so popular and why that popularity might not translate. It’s something I haven’t seen pointed out but I have never formally studied political science so maybe it’s such a well-known thing that it doesn’t need pointing out, but here it is.
Voters are more concerned at the state level with policy results than personality. Voters at the national level are more concerned with personality than policy results.
The reason being is that we can more easily avoid news about our governor’s personality, but we often can’t avoid state policy results. At the national level, policy results often don’t concern us, and we can’t avoid hearing news about the president.
Voters generally can’t avoid state policy results. If there’s a new freeway planned, a plan to privatize our schools, a ban on abortion, etc., voters hear about it. Voters see endless discussion of this on local news, and they hear people around us discuss. Voters also see the results of policy failure- in my state that’s rising housing costs, more traffic or more homeless people.
But what voters see less of is the people that made said law. There might be a two minute clip of the governor signing a bill or making a small statement on local news. When the news goes back to that story later, they tend to focus on the people affected by the news because local news knows viewers want to see that. Local news also has a lot to cover and not much time to do it. I’ll confess that I barely knew what Gavin Newsom sounded like well into his term. He’s a very famous governor but even here in California he’s barely present on the news. And I pay attention to politics! I doubt the average person on the street would recognize his voice, despite most voters choosing him.
On the other hand, how often is the national news covering the president just doing stuff? The president flying to Singapore is news. The president hitting the links is news. The president spilling his milkshake is news. It’s every day because for whatever reason, people want to know what the president is up to (or the news thinks you want to know). And it’s only sometimes about policy results.
And when it is about policy, it often doesn’t matter to us personally. I would like to see more aid to Ukraine, but if that doesn’t happen it doesn’t affect my bottom line. If immigration isn't reformed I don’t think it makes a tangible difference in my life. (it might, but not in an obvious way). If there’s no new tax on rich people to balance the budget, it’s not me paying it, so, really, who cares?
This isn’t to say it shouldn’t matter, just that if I choose to not care, I really don’t have to.
The other thing to consider is partisanship. Often a generic presidential candidate polls higher than actual candidates. While we might say “see this proves policy is most important!” we could also say that it just shows voters have a baseline idea of what any politician of each party probably supports anyway. If voters can safely assume that any politician of each party will do mostly the same things, then the primary concern is which one we like best.
Ron DeSantis can be a weird little man with a nasally voice and still be popular because he’s delivering to Floridians the results they want (such as they are), but isn’t so omnipresent that they have to like him personally. This is very much not the case for presidents. Do voters want the weird little awkward man your TV every day? How about the kindly old fellow instead? I don’t think it’s hard choice for voters, but we’ll see.