New York Post

Trumping all comers

Don’s lead over GOP rivals soars: poll

- By RYAN KING rking@nypost.com

Donald Trump’s lead over his GOP primary foes has surged despite his mounting legal woes, a poll found.

Trump nabbed 51% of support, marking a 29-point lead over his nearest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose support rang in at 22%, according to an NBC News poll.

In April, NBC pegged Trump with 46% support compared with DeSantis at 31%.

Since that survey, Trump has been slapped with a 37-count indictment from special counsel Jack Smith for alleged hoarding of sensitive classified documents.

“I’m probably the only person in history of this country that’s been indicted and my numbers went up,” Trump crowed during a Faith and Freedom Coalition speech Saturday.

The former president is also facing a 34-count indictment out of Manhattan over an alleged “catch and kill” scheme to suppress accusation­s from individual­s like porn star Stormy Daniels.

He has vehemently denied wrongdoing across the board.

NBC’s poll is more-or-less in lockstep with other surveys.

According to the latest RealClearP­olitics aggregate, Trump has a 52.1% backing in the GOP contest, with DeSantis his next closest foe at 21.5%.

After DeSantis, the new NBC poll found Mike Pence with 7% support, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 5% and Nikki Haley nabbing 4%.

No other GOP aspirant breached 4% support.

In a further boost for Trump, the NBC poll determined the favorabili­ty numbers for DeSantis are below both Trump and President Biden.

Among all voters, 30% view DeSantis favorably, while 46% see him unfavorabl­y, compared with 39% to 48%, respective­ly, for Biden, and 34% to 56% for Trump, an NBC News poll found.

For GOP voters, DeSantis is at 60% favorable to 17% unfavorabl­e, while Trump sits at 65% to 23%, respective­ly.

When asked whether Trump should maintain his stewardshi­p over the GOP, 49% of polled voters agreed, while 21% hailed him as a “good” president but called for the party to move on and 29% panned his behavior and wanted fresh leadership.

Though Trump may still have a near ironclad grip on the GOP, the poll contained warnings for him in a general election showdown.

Biden — whose approval rating is at 43% — dispatches him 49% to 45% in a hypothetic­al general election matchup, and ties with DeSantis at 47%, the poll found.

DeSantis has made electabili­ty a core tenet of his pitch to Republican voters.

NBC’s poll featured a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, and was taken June 16-20 among 1,000 voters.

Its Republican subset included 500 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.

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