Polls: Donald Trump Leads Potential Primary Opponents by Double-Digits

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Nick Gilbertson

Former President Donald J. Trump leads the rest of the potential 2024 Republican Party primary field by double-digits in a pair of polls published Tuesday.

Trump holds the support of 43 percent of registered Republicans in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, placing him 12 percentage points ahead of his nearest competitor, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). DeSantis is backed by 31 percent of respondents, followed by former Vice President Mike Pence at 7 percent.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who officially announced her presidential campaign with an ad on Tuesday, received just four percent of the response.  The poll was conducted from February 6-13, after the South Carolina Post-Courier’s January 31 report indicating that Haley would enter the race.

While those four candidates account for 85 percent of the response, Reuters did not disclose the results from the other 15 percent of respondents.

The Ispos/Reuters poll sampled “1,465 registered Republicans, part of a larger sample of more than 4,000 adults nationwide,” and its “credibility interval, a measure of precision, was about 3% for registered Republicans.”

In Morning Consult’s latest “2024 GOP Primary Tracker” survey, 47 percent of “potential Republican primary voters” support Trump, reinforcing his status as the frontrunner. DeSantis sits in second place with 31 percent of support, followed by Pence at 7 percent.

Haley fared similarly to her numbers in the Reuters poll, drawing only three percent of the response. Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tie with Haley at three percent.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who is reportedly mulling a run, are each backed by one percent of potential GOP primary voter participants.

Morning Consult also asked respondents which candidate would be their second choice, finding 41 percent of DeSantis supporters pick Trump as their second choice. Another 13 percent say Haley, 12 percent choose Pence, and 10 percent would flock to Cruz.

Of Trump voters, 46 percent identify DeSantis as their second choice, while another 18 would get behind Pence, and 8 percent choose Cruz. Haley and Abbott split another six percent of the demographic.

This aspect of the poll regarding first and second choices in the primary included samples from “3,258 potential Republican primary voters, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-2 percentage points,” according to the pollster.

Trump and DeSantis both lead in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups with President Joe Biden in the general election by a margin of 43 percent to 41 percent. This sample included some 6,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus one percentage point. Morning Consult conducted all aspects of the poll from February 10-12.

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