Trump’s lead in GOP presidential primary field surges in new poll after indictment
Donald Trump’s lead over his GOP primary foes has surged despite his mounting legal woes, a poll found.
Trump nabbed 51%, marking a 29-point lead over his nearest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose support rang in at 22%, according to an NBC News poll.
In April, NBC pegged Trump with 46% support compared with DeSantis at 31%.
Since that survey, Trump has been slapped with a 37-count indictment from special counsel Jack Smith for alleged hoarding of sensitive classified documents.
“I’m probably the only person in history of this country that’s been indicted and my numbers went up,” Trump crowed during a Faith and Freedom Coalition speech Saturday.
The former president is also facing a 34-count indictment out of Manhattan over an alleged “catch and kill” scheme to suppress accusations from individuals like porn star Stormy Daniels.
He has vehemently denied wrongdoing across the board.
NBC’s poll is more-or-less in lockstep with other surveys.
According to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate, Trump has a 52.1% backing in the GOP contest with DeSantis his next closest foe at 21.5%.
After DeSantis, the new NBC poll found Mike Pence with 7% support, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 5%, and Nikki Haley nabbing 4%.
No other GOP aspirant breached 4%.
In a further boost for Trump, the NBC poll determined the favorability numbers for DeSantis are below both Trump and President Biden.
Among all voters, 30% view DeSantis favorably while 46% see him unfavorably, compared with 39% to 48% respectively for Biden, and 34% to 56% for Trump, an NBC News poll found.
For GOP voters, DeSantis is at 60% favorable to 17% unfavorable, while Trump sits at 65% to 23% respectively.
When asked whether Trump should maintain his stewardship over the GOP, 49% agreed, while 21% hailed him as a “good” president but called for the party to move on, and 29% panned his behavior and wanted fresh leadership.
Though Trump may still have a near ironclad grip on the GOP, the poll contained warnings for him in a general election showdown.
Biden dispatches him 49% to 45% in a hypothetical general election matchup, and ties with DeSantis at 47%, according to \the poll.
DeSantis has made electability a core tenet of his pitch to Republican voters.
“l think that there’s a lot of voters who just aren’t going to vote for [Trump], who don’t like Biden,” DeSantis told “The Brian Kilmeade Show” earlier this month.
“At the end of the day, I think we have a great track record in Florida of reaching voters who had traditionally not voted Republican.”
The president’s approval rating is at 43%, with 68% deeming his health a “major” or “moderate” point of apprehension for them.
That figure was at 51% in 2020.
NBC’s poll featured a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points and was taken June 16-20 among 1,000 voters.
Its Republican subset included 500 voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.
