The dividing line in the GOP over Trump and DeSantis: Poll
Ryan King
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A fault line within the GOP over former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be emerging based on voter education levels.
College graduates approve of DeSantis 74% to 10% and Trump 63% to 30%, compared to white voters without a college degree who favor Trump 75% to 21% and approve of DeSantis 67% to 10%, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
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A similar phenomenon was pinpointed among Republican and Republican-aligned independent voters based on income levels. Households that earn less than $50,000 annually favor Trump 70% to 22% and DeSantis 52% to 12%, while households earning over $50,000 approve of Trump 65% to 28% and DeSantis 74% to 11%, per the poll.
Overall, Trump’s strongest GOP factions of support stem from white Evangelical Christians, white voters without a college degree, small-town or rural voters, and households earning under $50,000.
Those groups were generally pegged as his bastion of support in general election polling.
Meanwhile, DeSantis’s strongest enclaves of Republican support are college graduates, households earning over $50,000, big city voters, and Republican-leaning independents, according to the poll.
Trump dipped to his lowest approval among Republican voters broadly in roughly seven years, with a 68% to 25% favorability, while 7% of voters were unsure, the poll found. DeSantis’s favorability rang in at 66% to 11%, with 23% unsure, per the poll.
Both DeSantis and Trump have consistently polled as the top GOP presidential contenders in 2024. When asked if Trump would be the best candidate to claim the party nod for president in 2024, respondents said another candidate would be stronger by a margin of 54% to 42%, per the poll.
The poll was taken Feb. 13-16 among 1,352 U.S. adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
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In a further boost for DeSantis, he was the only Republican to beat President Joe Biden in a recent hypothetical 2024 general election matchup, per a Morning Consult poll. DeSantis has been coy about his 2024 plans but is reportedly eyeing a summertime campaign launch.
He is polling second, behind Biden in a GOP primary, according to the latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate.