(RightIsRight.co) – While it’s very early in the potential race, a new public opinion poll shows Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis would prevail over former President Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, regardless of whether it is a head-to-head matchup or involves multiple candidates.
A WPA Intelligence poll found that DeSantis would get 57% support in a head-to-head matchup vs. 33% for Trump.
Alternatively, DeSantis was once again ranked first in a contest with five bidders for the GOP nomination. He received 40% support compared with 31% for the former US president.
In the latter scenario, former US Ambassador Nikki Haley and former US Vice President Mike Pence tied for the third place with 8% each.
None of the other likely Republican candidates scored more than 5% support.
The WPA Intelligence survey polled 1,000 Republican primary voters nationwide from Feb. 13-16. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
A Daily Caller report points out that the poll findings contradict comments by GOP pundits and Trump campaign officials who think many candidates would play out in the former president’s favor by splitting the anti-Trump vote.
“It’s hard to see Trump losing with even four semi-serious candidates in the race. Even three, I would bet Trump. You start getting beyond three to four candidates running, it’s basically impossible for him to lose,” a former Trump aide told ABC News.
Another public opinion poll – by the UC Berkeley and Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) – also showed Ron DeSantis as having an advantage over Donald Trump in the Republican nomination race.
The survey offered respondents 11 candidate choices, with DeSantis garnering 37% support vs. 29% for Trump.
A poll by the same organizations from August 2022 had the former president in the lead with 38% compared with 27% for the Florida governor.
The nine other Republican candidate choices polled in the low single digits, with former US ambassador Nikki Haley remaining third with 6%.
“With Republicans in control of the House, President Biden may have an easier time rallying Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, who now see him as standing up to the opposition rather than struggling to navigate his programs through a Democratic-controlled Congress when expectations were higher,” commented IGS co-director Eric Schickler in the poll release.
However, other polls in the past few weeks have shown Trump to be in the lead for the GOP nomination.
An Emerson College poll in January showed the former president with 55% support, while DeSantis had 29%.
A Harvard-Harris poll earlier in February placed Trump’s support at 46%, while DeSantis’s stood at 24%.
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