A poll hints at a Trump advantage in the GOP 2024 race: He's 'fun'

The first New York Times/Sienna College poll of the 2024 campaign season, released Monday, showed former President Donald Trump absolutely dominating the 2024 presidential field. The poll showed Trump with 53 percent support among likely Republican voters, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with 17 percent, and every other candidate at 3 percent or lower. And the survey found that in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup without the other candidates, Trump leads DeSantis 62 percent to 31 percent.

What’s most striking about the gap between Trump and DeSantis is its consistency among almost every demographic group and ideological sector of the party. Even on abortion, which is both a high-profile policy space and the rare topic that reliably inspires single issue voters in the GOP, Trump leads DeSantis among Republicans who have opposite views on the issue, including the Republicans who strongly support the kind of six-week abortion ban that DeSantis signed into law this year. And one of DeSantis’ key strategies to distinguish himself from Trump — waging a war on “wokeness” with such ferocity that it would make Trump look like a complacent moderate by comparison — has not borne fruit: Trump leads him among Republicans motivated by fighting “radical woke ideology.”