A poll conducted by Harvard CAPS-Harris showed that a ‘surprising’ amount of Democrats were in favor of DeSantis in his feud with Disney. When respondents were asked about how they felt about the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s decision to appoint a special oversight board that will be responsible for overseeing the Disney district and removing its self-governing status, around 42 percent of Democrats said that they supported it. While this is not the majority of Democrats, it is still surprising that so many Democrats supported DeSantis’ position.
Overall, the poll also found that 56 percent of all respondents supported DeSantis in the feud while 44 percent disagreed.
Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor in the political science department at the University of Houston told Newsweek that it was “surprising” to see such a large percentage of Democrats supporting DeSantis. He further argued that it is likely that the Republicans are going to use this as additional “fodder” in order to further limit “Disney’s autonomy.”
This poll comes several months after DeSantis signed legislation that appointed the oversight board in February. DeSantis’ moves against Disney have widely been perceived as backlash following Disney’s opposition to the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which blocked discussions and instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation for school children up to the third grade.
DeSantis had stated that the oversight board would also be trying to block Disney from “trying to inject woke ideology” through the content it produces.
