A Morning Consult survey released this week found, that in a hypothetical 2024 Republican primary, Former President Trump is seeing a double-digit lead as his potential challengers, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who polled at one or zero percent. Nearly half, 48 percent, of potential GOP voters choose Trump as their nominee, leaving Trump with a sizable lead among his potential challengers.
The survey polled 3,763 Republican potential primary voters, between January 14-16, 2022 has a +/- 2 percent margin of error. Coinciding with several other surveys, telling a similar story, show Trump leading his potential challengers.
In descending order, the survey looks like this:
According to the survey Trump was found to lead Biden by three points, in a head to head matchup, with six percent undecided and 11 percent choosing someone else. However, the same survey shows Biden leading DeSantis by three percent in a head to head matchup, eight percent remaining undecided, with seven percent voting for someone else.
Representing little change over the past month, the survey shows 48 percent in support of Trump on December 18. DeSantis, however has seen support decline from 33 percent in that time frame. Despite this, DeSantis still stands as the favorite second choice of Trump supporters, with 44 percentage points. Likewise, of DeSantis supporters, 37 percent of chose Trump as their second choice.
Continuing to boast a strong favorable rating among potential Republican primary voters, Trump continues to poll with 77 percent viewing him favorably, while 69 percent said the same of DeSantis. Youngkin, has just 29 percent viewing him favorably. His lack of name recognition is big part of that is, as 37 percent said they have never heard of him.
Targeting his potential challengers early on, Trump remains the only Republican formally in the race. He has already zeroed in on DeSantis, who has not indicated if he intends to run against Trump. DeSantis lack of overtly stating that he will not run against Trump, has sparked tension between the two. DeSantis, however, has refused to criticize the former president, dismissing reports of a “Civil War” between himself and Trump.
Trump recently said, taking credit for helping DeSantis get elected against Democrat Andrew Gillum in 2018-
“So, now I hear he might want to run against me. So, we’ll handle that the way I handle things,”
-Former President Donald Trump
And in November, Trump took a jab at Youngkin, by mocking his name and crediting himself with helping Youngkin win in Virginia. Trump posted on social media, at the time-
“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,”.
-Former President Donald Trump
Though it is very early in this race, Trump has stepped up front to say, he wants the job back. It will be interesting, with all the investigations going on in the DOJ and Congress, what if any impact there will be on this election cycle moreover, how they will affect Trumps polling moving forward. It will depend on who his running mates are and how they leverage what they think of Trumps involvement regarding his own investigation.
Nevertheless, Trump is out of the starting gate with consistent numbers, and to win, he will need the GOP to get its act together and support him. Business as usual, that has formerly kept Republican dead weight in office, is not the way to achieve real change. With the new congress in session, we need to see moving forward real change – the kind that Trump has been famous for. Time will tell.
“Strong people stand up for themselves, but stronger people stand up for others.”
-Suzy Kassem