A new poll has Donald Trump, currently the lone Republican candidate for President in 2024, far outpacing his closest probable competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday shows Trump leading DeSantis by 17 points in a hypothetical GOP primary matchup between the two conservative favorites.
Trump received support from 48% of respondents while DeSantis came in a clear second – from both sides – at 31%.
Trailing those two were former Vice President Mike Pence at just 8%, and, laughably, currently unemployed former lawmaker Liz Cheney with 3%.
Morning Consult reports that the key takeaways from their poll are Trump’s steady lead, the fact that his favorability rating is actually improving, and the news cycle is actually providing him with more positive reports.
Trump trounces DeSantis in potential GOP primary matchup, new poll finds https://t.co/DSrZCYDHmv pic.twitter.com/IDGUFEo7SC
— The Hill (@thehill) January 18, 2023
To nobody’s surprise, Trump’s problems come not from a primary matchup against DeSantis in 2024, but rather his matchup against Joe Biden should the President announce a re-election bid.
In the same Morning Consult poll, Biden beats Trump 43%-40%, but DeSantis defeats the Democrat by a similar three-point margin.
The firm describes it as more of an electability issue in the general election, but might more accurately reflect the fact that Biden and Trump both have nearly 99% name recognition and with it, significant accompanying negative favorability ratings for both gentlemen.
DeSantis maintains a +58 point favorability rating, but unlike Trump, has a much larger percentage who have no opinion on the Florida governor – 21% have either never heard of him, or have heard of him but have no opinion.
The point is, there are plenty of positives for both Trump and DeSantis to take out of this 2024 matchup poll.
WPA poll:
DeSantis: 45%
Biden: 42%Biden: 49%
Trump: 41%More and more polls show this. It's too early for 2024, obviously, but polls like these show Americans are fine ditching Biden but don't want to go back to Trump. https://t.co/2dvyeKuE1p
— Dan K. Eberhart (@DanKEberhart) January 16, 2023
A second survey by WPA Intelligence shows a similar scenario with DeSantis slightly outpacing Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, while Trump trails the current President.
DeSantis has not declared his candidacy, though numerous pundits expect he may launch a campaign after his state’s legislative session ends in May.
You can literally put “Trump” on anything and it sells. The man is a waking economy and the best person to be running America. #Trump2024 pic.twitter.com/D1fpjanwh2
— Heather Mullins (@TalkMullins) January 17, 2023
The Political Insider reported in November that DeSantis had been telling donors he is “reconsidering” plans to launch a presidential campaign in 2024.
Trump jumped in the ring shortly after the midterm elections in November.
He has since released campaign videos, one demanding Congress hold hearings and issue subpoenas in order to investigate the FBI’s role in using Twitter to control information and sway elections.
In another campaign video, Trump announced a free speech policy platform that seeks to ‘dismantle and destroy’ left-wing censorship.
“If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Wow! I absolutely love President Trump’s policy platform to restore free speech.
This is the kind of policy that will put him back in the White House! pic.twitter.com/UYPeY671cl
— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) December 15, 2022
An interesting polling number would be how a unified ticket of Trump and DeSantis would fare against Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. I suspect the Republican ticket would have a much higher lead than 3 points.
The latest Morning Consult poll was conducted over the weekend. It’s unclear if Biden’s numbers against DeSantis and Trump will be negatively impacted by his classified document scandal which has been spiraling this week.