Poll: Trump Performs Nearly 6 Points Better Against Biden than DeSantis Does

Joe Biden, Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump
Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency/Nathan Howard/Bloomberg/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Nick Gilbertson

Former President Donald Trump performs nearly six points better than Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) does in a hypothetical general election race against President Joe Biden, according to an Emerson College Polling survey.

The poll, published Thursday, shows that Trump and Biden are neck-and-neck in a rematch of the 2020 election. While 43.5 percent of voters would back Biden, 43.4 percent would support Trump.

The margin between the two was decided by one respondent, with 441 choosing Trump to 442 selecting Biden. Another 8.9 percent of voters would back a different candidate, while 4.2 percent are undecided.

When People’s Party presidential candidate Cornel West is factored into the race as a third-party candidate, he takes 5.8 percent of the vote, while Biden drops to 40.3 percent and Trump leads the way with 41.4 percent.

DeSantis trails Biden by nearly six points in their hypothetical race, at 42.5 percent to 36.7 percent. In that scenario, nearly 14 percent of respondents would vote for someone else, and almost seven percent are undecided.

A plurality of 41 percent thinks Biden will win reelection, while 33.2 percent predict voters will place Trump back in the White House. Roughly one-in-four respondents expect someone else will prevail.

Trump continues to dominate the Republican primary field, although DeSantis has seen a slight boost in support since Emerson’s April poll. Currently, Trump sits atop the crowded field with 58.7 percent, followed by the Florida governor at 20.6 percent. In April, before DeSantis formally launched his campaign, Trump held 61.6 percent to his 16.4 percent.

Another 6.3 percent support former Vice President Mike Pence, who sits in third place, followed by former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) at four percent. Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) land around two percent of support, while Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) hover at one percent.

On the Democrat side of things, Biden holds the support of 72.5 percent of respondents in a small field. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in a distant second place with 14.6 percent, followed by Marianne Williamson with 2.5 percent.

The poll sampled 1,015 registered voters nationally between June 19-20 and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

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