DeSantis leads Trump by double digits in 2024 primary head-to-head: Poll
David M. Drucker
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Republican voters overwhelmingly support Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) over former President Donald Trump in a theoretical matchup in the 2024 GOP White House primary, according to a fresh poll.
The Suffolk University survey for USA Today shows DeSantis leading Trump 56% to 33% among Republican voters nationwide, continuing a trend of building support for Florida’s governor over the former president that has occurred since the midterm elections. Accordingly, the poll showed 61% of Republicans prefer an alternative to Trump being the party’s 2024 nominee, with 31% sticking with him.
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But there is a caveat. Although Republican voters want to move on from Trump the man, they prefer that his successor atop the GOP continues to pursue the former president’s legislative and policy agenda.
“Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump,” David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told the newspaper.
Trump announced his 2024 bid one week after this year’s midterm elections produced disappointing results for Republicans.
Democrats retained control of the Senate, won key gubernatorial contests, and came close to maintaining their majority in the House. Many party insiders are blaming the 45th president. They say his refusal to stop relitigating his 2020 loss to now-President Joe Biden, and the flawed candidates he endorsed in congressional and gubernatorial primaries, cost the GOP winnable races on Nov. 8.
If Trump can take anything away from this poll, it’s that he continues to hold on to a third of the Republican electorate, suggesting his high floor of support remains intact despite myriad setbacks. Additionally, the survey’s sample size, 374 Republican voters, was small, while the margin of error, 5.1 percentage points, was high. Overall, Suffolk polled 1,000 registered voters nationwide. The error margin for the full survey was 3.1 points.
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Additional findings from the poll include:
Trump’s favorable/unfavorable rating among Republicans was 64%-23%. Biden led Trump in a hypothetical 2024 matchup 47% to 40%. Biden trailed DeSantis in a hypothetical 2024 matchup 47% to 43%. Just 23% of voters want Biden to run for reelection. Among Democrats, that number is only 40%.