Former President Donald Trump is maintaining his lead in the hypothetical 2024 Republican primary race with a majority support, a Morning Consult survey released Tuesday found.
The survey found 53 percent of Republican primary voters supporting Trump in the 2024 primary, representing a three-point decrease for the former president over the last week following his initial post-indictment boost. DeSantis, who dropped from 26 percent to 23 percent this last week, has now ticked back up with 24 percent support.
In other words, Trump has returned to his 29-point lead, which he saw two weeks ago. Last week, he led DeSantis by 33 points — his greatest lead recorded in the survey.
No other potential challenger comes remotely close, as former Vice President Mike Pence comes in third place with seven percent. Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley came in fourth place with four percent support, followed by anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (three percent), former Rep. Liz Cheney (two percent), Sen. Tim Scott (two percent), Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, (one percent), and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (one percent).
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who jumped into the race this month, has zero percent support:
Morning Consult summarized the results this way: “An increase in Trump’s support following his indictment on criminal fraud charges in New York appears to be leveling out, but he’s still well ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.”
The survey asked Trump supporters who their second-choice candidate would be in the absence of Trump. A plurality, 44 percent, chose DeSantis, followed by 15 percent who said Pence, seven percent who said Ramaswamy, and five percent who said Haley. Another 15 percent said they are unsure.
Similarly, Trump appears to be the favorite second choice among DeSantis supporters — 41 percent. Another 16 percent chose Pence, followed by 13 percent for Haley, and seven percent for Ramaswamy. Six percent have no opinion.
The survey comes as Trump, who only has a handful of official challengers at this point — Haley, Hutchinson, and Ramaswamy — continues to dominate his potential challengers in both national and state-wide polls.
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“Well, I’m honored,” Trump told Breitbart News of his frontrunner status in an exclusive interview with Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle. “Sadly, I have to say part of it is because the country is doing so poorly. I wish it were for other reasons.”
He continued:
They saw how we did, and now they see the country doing so poorly and so pathetically. We’re not respected by anybody. You have wars all over. Ukraine and Russia never would have happened if I were president — zero chance. It looks like China is going to happen with Taiwan. That never would have happened. And inflation never would have happened. It was caused by energy prices more than anything else. So many of these things were just self-imposed foolish mistakes — stupid mistakes beyond anything anyone has ever seen before. So, yeah, I’m leading a lot in the polls — by 35 or 40 points in almost every poll. Texas just came in and we’re almost 50 points in Texas. Now, Massachusetts is almost 50 points.
“I think the party is very unified,” Trump said of his piling endorsements. “I also think they’re looking at the polls now and they’re saying, ‘wow, that’s impressive.’ But we’re leading by so much and they’re seeing that I think people look back to those four years we had.”