NYT Poll: GOP Voters Prefer Trump to DeSantis in 2024

While roughly half of Republican voters prefer someone other than Donald Trump to be the party’s nominee in 2024, the former president would still best the party’s top five contenders, including Governor Ron DeSantis, in head-to-head matchups, according to a new poll.

Fifty-one percent of GOP primary voters would prefer an alternative to Trump, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday. A majority of primary voters under 35 years old, 64 percent, reported that they would not vote for Trump in a presidential primary. The college educated, a leading indicator of donor-class preferences, were similarly galvanized against Trump, with 65 percent vowing the same.

However, the poll suggests Trump would still secure the nomination in a hypothetical matchup against five other top GOP contenders, including DeSantis, Senator Ted Cruz, former vice president Mike Pence, former governor Nikki Haley, and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo. Trump garnered 49 percent support to DeSantis’s 25 percent, Cruz’s 7 percent, Pence’s 6 percent, Haley’s 6 percent, and Pompeo’s 2 percent, the survey shows.

Younger Republicans, those with a college degree, and those who said they voted for President Biden in 2020 all picked DeSantis as their favorite potential candidate. A political superstar in Florida, DeSantis is unique among rising GOP talent in refusing to commit to backing out of the 2024 race should Trump run.

Many Trump supporters recognize DeSantis’s likability, with 44 percent of respondents reporting that they had a very favorable opinion of the governor, compared to Trump’s 46 percent.