Former President Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican primary field with a 43-point lead over his closest potential competitor, according to a Morning Consult poll.
The poll, published on Tuesday, finds that 61 percent of potential Republican primary voter respondents support Trump for the nomination. Another 18 percent of participants back Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has not declared a candidacy, placing him in second place. Trump’s 43-point lead is the largest he has had in the polling outfit’s running “2024 GOP Primary Tracker.” The margin between the two widened by two points since last week when Trump registered 60 percent of support to DeSantis’s 19 percent.
No other candidate garners double-digit support in the latest poll. Former Vice President Mike Pence sits in third place at six percent, followed by former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy who tie at four percent. Another two percent of respondents back former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), while Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) tie at one percent.
The poll asked Trump and DeSantis supporters who their second choice candidates would be, finding they both take the lion’s share of each other’s support. Of DeSantis supporters, 43 percent say they view Trump as their second choice. Pence draws the second-highest second-choice response at 15 percent, followed by Haley at 13 percent and Ramaswamy at nine percent.
Similarly, DeSantis is the second choice for 44 percent of Trump supporters, followed by Pence at 15 percent, Ramaswamy at ten percent, and Haley at five percent.
The Republican primary portion of the poll sampled 3,571 potential GOP primary voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus two to four percentage points.
The poll also gauged hypothetical general election match-ups between the top-performing Republicans and President Joe Biden. In a rematch of the 2020 election, Biden leads Trump by a margin of 44 percent to 41 percent. Another nine percent would vote for another candidate, and six percent are unsure who they would back.
In a DeSantis versus Biden contest, Biden leads 43 percent to 41 percent, with ten percent supporting another candidate and six percent undecided.
For this portion of the poll, Morning Consult sampled some 6,000 registered voters, and its margin of error is plus or minus one percent.
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