Trump picks up steam to start 2023 as Biden and DeSantis encounter roadblocks
Christian Datoc
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Former President Donald Trump holds a considerable lead over would-be 2024 Republican primary challengers in the latest tracking poll from Morning Consult, a sign that his candidacy is benefiting from recent questions raised about his chief political rivals.
Morning Consult surveyed 3,763 likely Republican primary voters between Jan. 14-16, 48% of whom claimed to support the former president as the 2024 nominee. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and former Vice President Mike Pence, neither of whom have declared their 2024 candidacy, earned 31% and 8% support, respectively. A smattering of other GOP hopefuls all polled in the low-single digits.
TRUMP ATTENDING ‘INTIMATE’ CAMPAIGN EVENT IN COLUMBIA, SC LATER IN JANUARY
Trump’s favorability among Republican voters also appears to have recovered from the party’s underwhelming performance in November’s 2022 midterm elections, with 77% of Morning Consult’s sample saying they hold “favorable” views of Trump, compared to 69% for DeSantis and 62% for Pence. DeSantis does maintain a slight, 4-point net favorability rating over Trump.
This new poll comes as Trump is ramping up his previously quiet third White House campaign. Top aides previewed an event Trump will hold on Jan. 28, 2023, alongside Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in Columbia, South Carolina. The campaign is billing the “intimate” event, which aides had stressed would intentionally not take the form of one of Trump’s preferred rallies, as an “opportunity to exemplify the strong support from elected officials in the state as we approach the one-year mark to South Carolina’s Republican Presidential Primary.”
Meanwhile, both DeSantis and President Joe Biden, who has yet to announce his candidacy for 2024, have encountered some setbacks to open 2023.
Like Trump in 2022, the president is embroiled in a classified documents scandal of his own, and some have questioned whether newly tapped special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation could prompt Democrats to launch 2024 primary challenges.
The investigation could also complicate Biden’s 2024 announcement, which he and White House chief of staff Ron Klain had both hinted would come early in 2023.
“The president will make that decision. I expect it shortly after the holiday,” Klain said at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit on Dec. 6. “I expect the decision will be to do it.”
Trump, in turn, has used the investigation as a means of attacking Biden while downplaying his own espionage investigation, helmed by a separate special counsel, former Hague war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith.
“I did NOTHING WRONG. JOE DID!” Trump wrote in a series of Truth Social posts Wednesday morning. “Biden is being treated so smuch better than me, I’m shocked (not really!). Why aren’t they raiding his house, & how come his representatives and lawyers are allowed to work together with the Gestopo in looking for documents, when my lawyers & representatives were not allowed anywhere near the search. We weren’t even allowed to know what they took when they raided my home.”
DeSantis, on the other hand, is facing a string of headlines testing his staying power ahead of a likely challenging primary bid.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday morning that CVS and Walgreens, both companies DeSantis has targeted for “woke” policies in the past, sponsored events at his inauguration earlier in January. Lobbyists for Disney and BlackRock, two other frequent DeSantis targets, co-chaired his inauguration and served as top DeSantis fundraisers.
The outlet said it wanted to “underscore how DeSantis maintains corporate ties even while he works to burnish his image as taking on ‘woke’ corporations.”
Politico similarly reported Tuesday that some high-dollar Trump-turned-DeSantis donors have found DeSantis’s interpersonal skills lacking.
DeSantis insiders have previously suggested the Florida governor could announce his 2024 campaign shortly after the coming state house’s legislative session, pending a rule change that would allow him to stay in office while running for the White House.
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Trump allies have maintained that despite growing support for a DeSantis challenge in 2024, the former president will bleed support from the Florida governor the longer the race lasts.
“With everything happening right now, it looks like Trump would lose a head-to-head against DeSantis, but Trump’s odds improve with a crowded primary,” one former Trump campaign staffer told the Washington Examiner. “He needs this to turn into 2016 again, where people like Pence and [Sen. Tim] Scott potentially pull votes away from DeSantis, while Trump can rally his die-hard MAGA base.”