A new poll is out today that pits President Trump against Joe Biden in a 2024 presidential challenge and it could spell trouble for Trump.
The poll also pits Joe Biden against Governor Ron DeSantis.
In short, the pollster says that Republican voters appear to want Trump’s policies but not Trump.
Here’s more via USA Today:
Republican support for Donald Trump’s presidential bid in 2024 has cratered, an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, as the former president is beleaguered by midterm losses and courtroom setbacks.
By 2-1, GOP and GOP-leaning voters now say they want Trump’s policies but a different standard-bearer to carry them. While 31% want the former president to run, 61% prefer some other Republican nominee who would continue the policies Trump has pursued.
They have a name in mind: Two-thirds of Republicans and those inclined to vote Republican want Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president. By double digits, 56% to 33%, they prefer DeSantis over Trump.
“Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
Enthusiasm for Trump’s third bid for the White House within the GOP has significantly ebbed in recent months, the USA TODAY/Suffolk survey finds.
In July, 60% of Republicans wanted Trump to run again. In October, that number had dipped to 56%. Now it has fallen to 47%, an almost-even split with the 45% who don’t want him to run for a third time.
The polls taken in July and December were of registered voters. The poll in October was of likely midterm voters.
Trump is viewed less favorably by his partisans as well. The percentage of Republicans who see him favorably has dropped from 75% in October to 64% in December. His unfavorable rating has risen to 23% from 18%.
Among all voters, Trump has fallen further behind President Joe Biden in a hypothetical head-to-head. Now, Biden would win a general-election matchup by 47% to 40%. (Because of the effects of rounding, Biden’s margin is a bit wider than that indicates, at 7.8 points.) In October, Biden also led but by a narrower margin, 46%-42%.
While Biden now leads Trump, he trails DeSantis in a head-to-head race, with DeSantis at 47%, Biden at 43%.
Here’s the lowdown:
The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cell phone Wednesday through Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The sample of 374 Republicans and independents who lean to the Republican Party has an error margin of 5.1 points.
This doesn’t surprise me after Trump began unjustly lashing out at DeSantis in the days right after the midterms. I think many Republicans have grown weary of Trump, especially with someone like DeSantis on the presidential horizon.
But we’re a long way from any primary battle so we’ll see where things actually land when the political fisticuffs begin. I really don’t think there are many Republicans who could beat Trump in a primary battle. In fact, I can’t think of any other than Governor DeSantis.