DeSantis slips, Ramaswamy surges — with Trump far ahead in latest GOP poll
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and political novice Vivek Ramaswamy are tied for second place in the GOP primary contest with 10% support apiece — four days before the contest’s first debate, according to a new national poll out Saturday.
But both Republicans are trailing far behind former president Donald Trump, who leads them both by a 46% margin, the Emerson College poll found.
With 56% of registered Republicans in his corner, Trump’s support barely budged from the 59% mark the same poll found in June — despite the three different indictments filed against him in the same time frame.
The pollster found a sharp 11% drop for DeSantis, who had the support of 21% of Republicans in the same survey two months ago — a decline that mirrored the results of other recent polls — and the rest of the field mired in the low single digits.
Meanwhile, support for Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old businessman, surged by 8% since June, the Emerson poll found.
“Ramaswamy has improved among Republican voters with a postgraduate degree, a group that has previously been part of the DeSantis’s base,” said Spencer Kimball, the poll’s executive director, and “made inroads” among GOP voters under 35.
The results could presage fireworks at Wednesday’s Republican debate — where DeSantis will reportedly “take a sledgehammer” to the party’s rising star, according to a leaked campaign strategy document.
The survey of 465 registered Republican voters, conducted Aug. 16-17, was part of a national 1,000-voter poll that carried a 3% margin of error.
The full panel found Trump in a neck-and-neck general election race with President Biden, with 44% support for each of them and 12% of voters undecided.
