Trump big poll topper
Ex-prez holds 37-point lead on DeS
Former President Donald Trump remains the undisputed leader of the 2024 Republican presidential pack — holding a staggering 37 percentage-point lead over his nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a new poll out Monday.
Trump, 77, drew 54% support among likely GOP primary voters nationwide in the New York Times/Siena College survey, followed by DeSantis at 17%.
No other Republican contender received more than 3% support — with former Vice President Mike Pence, former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) each reaching that figure.
Multimillionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie each clocked in at 2%. No other aspirant reached 1%, while 13% of respondents didn’t know whom they’d back.
The poll shows Trump dominating DeSantis in key constituencies of the Republican Party.
For instance, the former president led the Florida governor 60% to 9% among potential GOP primary voters age 65 and older. Trump also led DeSantis 62% to 13% among white voters without a college degree.
Self-described independents favored Trump over DeSantis by 28 percentage points (45% to 17%), while respondents who called themselves “very conservative” backed the former president by 50 percentage points over the Sunshine State’s leader (65% to 15%).
Trump also doubled DeSantis in a hypothetical head-to-head showdown, with 62% preferring the 45th president to 31% who backed the challenger.
Electability question
One of the DeSantis camp’s core campaign messages to voters is that the Florida governor is more electable than Trump, but the poll found that Republicans surveyed feel differently.
More than half of potential GOP primary voters (58%) felt Trump was either “a lot” or “somewhat” more able to defeat President Biden next year, while just 28% said the same of DeSantis.
More than two-thirds of respondents (69%) were more likely to deem Trump a “strong leader,” while just 22% thought that phrase better suited DeSantis.
One of the few silver linings for the DeSantis camp is that 55% of primary voters who have not already backed Trump said they had ruled out backing the former president, while 46% of the former president’s supporters said they were considering other candidates. Monday’s poll aligns closely with the latest RealClearPolitics polling average, which shows Trump with 54.0% support nationwide, while DeSantis has 18.3%.
The top two are followed by Ramaswamy (4.9%), Pence (4.3%) and Haley (3.5%).
During a rally in Erie, Pa., Saturday, Trump called on his lowerpolling Republican rivals to exit the race. “Every dollar spent attacking me by Republicans is a dollar given straight to the Biden campaign,” Trump said.
The New York Times/Siena poll was conducted July 23-27 among 1,329 registered voters nationwide, including 818 registered Republican voters. The margin of error among all registered voters was plus or minus 3.7 percentage points and plus or minus 4.0 percentage points among registered GOP voters.