Former President Donald Trump has taken a 30-point lead over his next closest possible 2024 GOP presidential primary competitor and now has majority support in a crowded field, a new poll from Emerson College released on Tuesday shows.
The survey, taken entirely after Trump’s highly publicized visit last week to East Palestine, Ohio, shows Trump at 55 percent–30 points higher than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is down at 25 percent — meaning Trump has now crossed the majority threshold in national GOP primary polling.
The poll of a 10-way race shows Trump and DeSantis as the only two possibilities breaking into double digits. Trump announced his 2024 campaign in November last year right after the 2022 midterm elections, and DeSantis has been considering a run and trying to build his national profile in recent weeks including with the rollout this week of a book and events over the last couple weeks in places like New York and Illinois. DeSantis has said he will not make a decision on whether he will run until after Florida’s spring legislative session, which would put a timetable for such an announcement for sometime in late May or even June.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis listens to others during a news conference where he spoke of new law enforcement legislation that will be introduced during the upcoming session, Jan. 26, 2023, in Miami. David McIntosh, the president ofthe influential Club For Growth group, said Tuesday, Feb. 7, that the group has invited a half dozen potential Republican candidates for the White House to its donor summit in Florida next month including DeSantis. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File)
The Emerson College poll found that former Vice President Mike Pence got only 8 percent of support of those surveyed, and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley earned just 5 percent. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who is considering a run of his own, got 2 percent while everyone else was 1 percent or lower. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan all got 1 percent, while New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu got 0.4 percent. Five percent said they wanted someone else.
The survey also shows Trump being the only declared or potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate to lead current Democrat President Joe Biden. Trump leads Biden by 4 percent–a clear lead outside the survey’s margin of error–with Trump getting 46 percent and Biden getting 42 percent. DeSantis, meanwhile, trails Biden by just as much–4 percent–meaning Biden’s 44 percent to 40 percent lead over DeSantis is outside the poll’s margin of error. Biden’s lead over Haley, 40 percent to 37 percent, is 3 percentage points, just outside the survey’s margin of error.
The poll surveyed 1,060 registered voters from February 24-25 with a 2.9 percentage margin of error.
Emerson’s polling is the latest in recent surveys showing the former president with a large polling edge over announced and hypothetical GOP contenders.
A Rasmussen Reports poll found Thursday that 52 percent supported Trump, while only 24 percent chose DeSantis. Just 15 percent said they supported Haley, widely viewed as the most establishment among the three potential contenders.
A recent Harvard Cap/Harris poll also found Trump led DeSantis by 23 percentage points. Trump earned 46 percent support of the poll’s respondents. DeSantis received 23 percent, exactly half of Trump’s total support in that poll.
Only three contenders have announced a bid for the Republican nomination: Trump, Haley, and author Vivek Ramaswamy.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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