Former President Donald Trump has a commanding lead in the hypothetical 2024 Republican presidential primary race in Kentucky, the latest FOX 56/Emerson College poll found.
Trump is the clear favorite among likely Kentucky Republican voters, who were asked to choose among the former president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
No potential challenger comes close, as Trump boasts a 38.9 percent lead over DeSantis with 61.5 percent support to the governor’s 22.6 percent. No other potential candidate saw double digit support.
Pence and Haley came in third and fourth place with 4.1 percent support and four percent support, respectively. The remaining individuals saw less than one percent support, and 5.1 percent said, “someone else.”
According to Fox 56:
When broken down into age groups, the poll found those between 18-49 were 54.6% in favor of Trump, and 27.4% supported DeSantis. The former president’s lead extends over DeSantis among voters over 50, 66% to 20%.
Trump maintained even support from both men and women, according to the poll.
Further, the survey found Trump still wielding an considerable amount of political influence among GOP voters, as over one-third, 35.7 percent, said Trump’s endorsement of a candidate makes them “more likely” to support that candidate. However, 54.5 percent said a Trump endorsement makes no difference.
The survey also affirmed the findings of others recent polls, which found that Trump’s indictment is not hurting him, particularly among his base.
Just 6.1 percent of potential Kentucky GOP voters said the indictment makes them “less likely” to support him, while 45.8 percent said it actually makes them “more likely” to support Trump. Anther 48.1 percent said the indictment makes “no difference.”
The survey was taken April 10-11, 2023, among 900 “very likely” GOP primary voters and has a +/- 3.2 percent margin of error.
The poll coincides with several other state-level surveys, showing Trump leading in Florida, Iowa, and the swing state of Pennsylvania. In the Keystone State poll, specifically, Trump has a six-point advantage over DeSantis.
As Breitbart News reported:
The latest Franklin & Marshall College Poll showed that Trump led the rest of the Republican primary field with 40 percent of the vote, six points over his closest contender, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
With DeSantis at 34 percent, all other named candidates in the Republican primary poll, with 227 registered voters respondents, were in the single digits: former Vice President Mike Pence at six percent and Nikki Haley at four percent. There were also six percent who said “other” and 11 percent who “didn’t know.”
In a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Biden, the two are in a virtual tie. With 643 registered voters and a 4.9 percent margin of error, 36 percent of the respondents said they supported Biden, while, within the margin of error, 35 percent said they would support Trump.
The former president also continues to dominate in national polls. The latest Morning Consult survey released this week found the former president growing in support, garnering 56 percent support to DeSantis’s 23 percent — a three-point drop over the last three days.