Morning Consult Poll: Virtually No Movement at the Top of the Republican Primary Post-Arraignment

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Hannah Knudsen

There has been virtually no movement at the top of the Republican primary race, this week’s Morning Consult survey found.

The latest survey shows little to no movement across the Republican primary field, with former President Donald Trump continuing to stand as the clear frontrunner at 57 percent support. That reflects a slight decrease from the post-indictment bump he saw last week, which brought him to 59 percent support. However, his current standing is still more than the 56 percent support he garnered two weeks ago.

This week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis falls 37 points behind with 20 percent support after dipping into the teens at 19 percent last week. However, that is still two points lower than the 22 percent support he saw two weeks ago.

The survey shows former Vice President Mike Pence coming in a distant third place with seven percent support, down from eight percent support last week.

Four presidential hopefuls — anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — tied for fourth place with three percent support each.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who called on Trump to “end his campaign” due to his indictment, garnered one percent support, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum followed with zero percent support.

VIDEO — Hutchinson: Republicans Should Not Dismiss Trump Indictment, ‘It Has the Ring of Seriousness’

The survey notes that Trump’s current lead is still a “slight decline from an all-time high of 61% in mid-May,” but he is still “well ahead of DeSantis.” Morning Consult’s Eli Yokley observed weeks ago that much of Trump’s slight dip in the poll “came before DeSantis officially began his bid.”

That portion of the survey was taken June 17-19, 2023, among 3,521 potential Republican primary voters and has a +/- two percent margin of error.

In addition to Trump continuing to trounce his rivals with a solid lead, the survey found that a plurality of DeSantis voters, 45 percent, prefer Trump as their second-choice candidate, followed by 19 percent who said Pence and 12 percent who chose Haley.

A plurality of Trump supporters, 42 percent, also chose DeSantis as their second-choice candidate, followed by 17 percent who chose Pence.

RELATED — “It Won’t Stop with Me”: Trump Warns Republicans Must “Get Tough”

President Donald Trump via Storyful

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