Former President Donald Trump is leading his Republican competitors in Iowa by double digits, data from a recent New York Times/Siena survey found.
The survey, taken among 432 likely Iowa caucus goers, showed Trump leading his competitors in the Hawkeye State with 44 percent support. As is consistent with other surveys, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis comes in a distant second, 24 points behind Trump with 20 percent support.
No other candidate listed broke double digits, as South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott came in third place with nine percent support. Anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy came in fourth place with five percent support, followed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley with four percent and former Vice President Mike Pence with three percent support. All others saw one percent support or less.
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The survey noted that Trump is performing better nationally, garnering 54 percent in that capacity — ten points higher than his status in Iowa. Nationally, DeSantis performs worse, dropping to 17 percent support. Remaining candidates see three percent support or less on a national scale.
According to the Times — which noted Trump, while leading his competitors, has a smaller lead in Iowa compared to other states — the poll shows:
Mr. DeSantis’s efforts in Iowa have been having an effect, but that the challenge of defeating Mr. Trump there is doubly complicated: Several rivals are siphoning off the support he would need from voters who are open to alternatives to the former president, and Mr. Trump’s voters are still overwhelmingly behind him.
“And as with the national race, it seemed Mr. DeSantis was failing to win over voters with the issues he has made central to his campaign, including defeating so-called woke ideologies,” it found.
The survey appears to be relatively consistent with the findings made in other Iowa surveys. An American Greatness/National Research Inc. survey released in late July, for example, found Trump leading in the Hawkeye State by a 27-point margin.
It also comes as DeSantis continues to focus primarily on the three early states of New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Iowa, rather than Super Tuesday states.