DeSantis appears to be closing gap on Trump for GOP presidential nomination: poll
GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be closing the gap on former President Donald Trump as a potential Republican presidential candidate, a new NBC poll shows.
DeSantis’s improving numbers come as a majority of Americans say they want neither Trump, 76, nor President Biden, 80, to run for the nation’s highest office in 2024, according to the survey.
In a hypothetical primary heat for the Republican presidential nod, Trump came out on top with GOP voters, the NBC survey said — but by a much smaller margin than an early April Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
The new NBC survey found that 46% of GOP primary voters favor Trump as their first choice, while 31% said they would select DeSantis, who is expected to throw his hat into the race.
The poll a few weeks ago showed Trump leading DeSantis by 57% to 31% among GOP and Republican-leaning voters.
Meanwhile, the NBC survey revealed red flags for both Trump and Biden, who is expected to announce his Democratic re-election bid this week.
A whopping 70 percent of Americans gave a thumb’s down to Biden running, including more than half of registered Democrats, the poll said.
Nearly 50 percent of those against a Biden re-election bid cited his age.
And 60% of Americans — including a third of Republicans — said they don’t think Trump should run in 2024.
“Sequels are frequently hits at the box office, but apparently not at the ballot box,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research, who conducted the survey with Republican counterpart Bill McInturff and his team at Public Opinion Strategies.
McInturff added, “It’s clear that people do not want a Biden-Trump rematch.”
A Democrat who was surveyed for the poll referred to both Biden and Trump when he said, “The president needs to reflect the age group in the country.
“They should both retire. It is someone else’s turn.”
Still, more than two-thirds of Republican primary voters said they continue to support former Trump despite his criminal indictment and other legal probes, the NBC poll said.
GOP primary voters were asked by pollsters whether the probes into Trump “are a politically motivated attempt to stop” him and if they still support the 2024 Republican presidential candidate, and 68% responded yes.
After finding Trump and DeSantis the favored GOP candidates, the poll then had former Vice President Mike Pence at 6%, ex-South Carolina Gov. and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson all tied at 3%, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy with 2% support.
The poll showed that just 41% of all adults surveyed approve of Biden’s job performance, while 54% disapprove.
“President Biden’s numbers are not where they need to be at this stage,” Horwitt said, noting the president’s struggles with independents.
But Biden still remains slightly more popular than Trump: 38% of those adults surveyed said they have a positive view of the current president, versus 48% with a negative view.
By comparison, 34% of Americans have a positive view of Trump, while 53% have a negative view.
The NBC News survey was conducted April 14 to 18. The margin of error for the 292 Republican primary voters was plus or minus 6 percentage points.
The overall poll queried 1,000 adults — including 861 reached by cell phone — and it has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.
