A new Wall Street Journal poll indicates that former President Donald Trump has gained a significant lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential-nomination race. Trump currently holds 51% support among likely Republican primary voters in a head-to-head matchup, compared to DeSantis’s 38%.
While the GOP candidate field is still developing and the first primary balloting is more than eight months away, the poll highlights Trump’s durability among Republican voters, with 48% support in a potential field of 12 Republican contenders.
WSJ reported:
Donald Trump has gained command of the GOP presidential-nomination race over Ron DeSantis, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds, with the former president building support across most parts of the primary electorate as the Florida governor has struggled on the national stage.
Mr. DeSantis’s 14-point advantage in December has fallen to a 13-point deficit, and he now trails Mr. Trump 51% to 38% among likely Republican primary voters in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.
The GOP candidate field is still developing, and the first primary balloting is more than eight months away. But as of now, Mr. Trump also trounces all competitors in a test of a fuller, potential field of 12 Republican contenders, winning 48% support to 24% for Mr. DeSantis.
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, draws 5% support, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott draws 3% in the survey, which included 600 likely GOP primary voters. All other candidates had 2% support or less.
Mr. DeSantis’s strength in the Journal’s December poll came on the heels of his 19-point re-election victory in Florida. But the governor, who has been slow to engage with Mr. Trump for fear of alienating his supporters, has since hit a rough patch as he approaches a formal entrance in the race.
This week, a series of U.S. House members from Florida rebuffed him by endorsing Mr. Trump, and he recently drew GOP criticism for comments describing the war in Ukraine as a territorial dispute.
At the same time, Mr. Trump has stepped up campaign activity—and attacks on his rival—since the Journal’s December poll, and he has enjoyed GOP solidarity in the face of criminal charges filed against him in New York.
The new Journal poll finds Mr. DeSantis losing ground to Mr. Trump among voters who call themselves “very conservative”—a group that makes up about half of the GOP primary electorate. Mr. DeSantis has also ceded substantial support to the former president among women and voters with four-year college degrees.
Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey, along with Democrat John Anzalone and Republican Tony Fabrizio, said that Mr. Trump showed durability with his dominating leads both in the test against Mr. DeSantis and in the multicandidate field.
“If you are with Trump, you are with him,” said Ms. Murphy, whose firm has worked for President Biden. “You can throw 10 other candidates in the field; you can take all of the candidates out.”
Still, the poll finds a number of advantages for Mr. DeSantis in the contest. He carries a more positive image than Mr. Trump, with 84% viewing him favorably, compared with 78% who say so of Mr. Trump. Some 41% of GOP primary voters say Mr. DeSantis would have the better chance of beating Mr. Biden, while 31% say Mr. Trump would be the stronger candidate.
Among the 1,500 registered voters in the survey, Mr. DeSantis leads Mr. Biden 48% to 45% in a hypothetical contest, while Mr. Trump lags behind the Democratic president by 3 points. Both leads are within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for the full sample of voters. Mr. Biden in 2020 defeated Mr. Trump by 4.5 percentage points.
