According to a Morning Consult survey, former President Trump continues to lead the Republican presidential primary field with a 43-point advantage over his closest prospective rival.
According to the survey, which was released this week, 61 percent of respondents who would be Republican primary voters back Trump for the nomination. Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has not yet announced his campaign, is supported by an additional 18% of participants, putting him in second place. In the ongoing “2024 GOP Primary Tracker,” Trump’s advantage of 43 points is the greatest it has ever been. Since last week, when Trump received 60% of the vote to DeSantis’s 19%, the gap between the two has grown by two points.
In the most recent survey, no other contender has double-digit support. Former Vice President Mike Pence is in third position with 6%, followed by former Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC), who is tied at 4%, with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) is supported by an additional 2% of respondents, while Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX), Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), and former Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) are tied at 1% of respondents.
The survey questioned supporters of Trump and DeSantis who their second-choice contender was likely to be, and it found that they both have the majority of each other’s support. 43 percent of DeSantis backers claim that Trump is their second pick after DeSantis. Pence has the second-highest second-choice vote, with 15%, followed by Haley with 13% and Ramaswamy with 9%.
In a similar vein, DeSantis is the second pick of 44% of Trump backers, followed by Pence at 15%, Ramaswamy at 10%, and Haley at 5%.
The margin of error for the Republican primary part of the survey, which included 3,571 possible GOP primary voters, is plus or minus two to four percentage points.
The survey evaluated potential general election contests between President Joe Biden and the leading Republicans. Biden leads Trump by a margin of 44 percent to 41 percent in a repeat of the 2020 election. Additionally, 9% of voters would support a different candidate, and 6% are undecided.
Biden leads DeSantis by a margin of 43 percent to 41 percent, with 10% backing a different candidate and 6% unsure.
Morning Consult surveyed 6,000 registered voters for this section of the survey; the margin of error is +/- 1%.
