Poll: DeSantis’s South Carolina Slide Continues as Trump, Scott Surge

Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a campaign event
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert/Meg Kinnard, Allison Joyce/Getty Images
Nick Gilbertson

Former President Donald Trump is surging in the Republican primary field in South Carolina, while Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)  finds himself in a five-way race for second place, according to a National Public Affairs poll. 

The poll, unveiled Tuesday on the Yes Labels podcast, shows Trump leads the field with 45 percent of support, up four points from June.

DeSantis has fallen off five points in that time, registering at just 13 percent in the latest poll, according to former White House Political Director Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, who co-host the podcast and co-founded National Public Affairs. 

Stepien noted Trump has gained support since June among “middle-aged voters” (+7), “non-college graduates” (+9), and “evangelical men” (+6). 

“So we always hear about the… Trump base being ‘strong,’ well its’ gotten stronger because those three groups are certainly groups that you would consider to be part of the base,” Stepien said. 

Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) are on DeSantis’s trail with 11 percent apiece. Notably, Haley’s support, like DeSantis’s, has dropped precipitously in American Greatness’s South Carolina polling, while Scott has surged. In April, she registered at 19 percent, and in June, she landed at 12 percent. Conversely, Scott surged from seven percent in April to ten percent in June. 

Former Gov. Christ Christie (R-NJ) and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are within striking distance of second place, with seven and five percent of support, respectively. They have both made significant gains since April, when Ramaswamy was at just one percent and Christie was not included in the poll. 

“[Ramaswamy is] taking some votes from DeSantis as a Trump-lite option,” Stepien said on the podcast. “Chris Christie… he’s taking some votes from Nikki Haley as anti-Trump or Never Trump option. So those, they’re not big numbers… but those numbers add up, and those votes are not coming from Trump.” 

Rounding out the rest of the field, former Vice President Mike Pence takes two percent, while former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) tie at one percent. 

National Public Affairs sampled 846 likely voters from August 7-9 in the Palmetto State, according to @IAPolls2022, a polling aggregator on the social media platform X.

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