Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden nationally in a hypothetical general election match-up while a generic Republican candidate trails Biden by four points, according to a Democracy Institute poll first reported by the Daily Express.
In a rematch of the 2020 election, 49 percent of likely voters back Trump, placing him 5 percentage points ahead of Biden at 44 percent. Another seven percent are either undecided or would support someone else in that scenario.
In a race where Trump is the GOP nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democrat nominee, the 45th president’s lead expands to 11 points, at 51 percent and 40 percent, respectively.
When respondents were provided with the options of Biden or a generic GOP candidate, Biden took 48 percent of support while the generic candidate earned 45 percent.
The Democracy Institute also tested a hypothetical match-up between Biden and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who for months was Trump’s clear-cut closest competitor before falling back to the rest of the pack in many polls. DeSantis underperforms the generic GOP nominee, garnering 43 percent to Biden’s 47 percent.
The poll also gauged the contours of the GOP primary field, finding that Trump, who has been indicted four times, continues to dominate his opponents with a 47-point lead. Of likely GOP primary voter respondents, 60 percent back Trump, while 13 percent support entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, putting him in second place.
DeSantis follows Ramaswamy with twelve percent, while former Gov Nikki Haley (R-SC) rounds out the three-way race for second place with eight percent. From there, four percent say they would vote for former Vice President Mike Pence, while Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) tie at one percent.
“They all thought they would be competing with one another because Trump would be sidelined, either legally or in practice, by the indictments,” Patrick Basham, the founding director of the Democracy Institute and former Cato Institute adjunct scholar, told the Daily Express of Trump’s rivals.
“I mean, this is exactly why DeSantis got in because he was told, ‘wait for the indictments, Trump will be finished, you’re going to have the race to yourself,’” he added before noting the exact opposite has taken place.
“Trump is getting stronger, they’re getting weaker,” he observed.
The Democracy Institute sampled 1,500 likely voters from August 29-31. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus three percentage points.
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