Morning Consult Poll: DeSantis has Half of Trump Support

Other results from the survey include:

• Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is backed by only 4% of the party's electorate, while Vivek Ramaswamy has 1% support, showing meager backing for Trump's declared challengers for the Republican nomination.
• Former Vice President Mike Pence's favorability rating fell from 60% to 55% during a week in which news coverage of his condemnation of Trump's behavior concerning the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was featured. In addition, the percentage of potential GOP primary voters who said they'd recently heard something negative about Pence, who is polling at 7% in the nominating race, went up from 15% to 24%.
• DeSantis is the second choice of 46% of potential Republican primary voters who are backing Trump, while 43% of the Florida governor's supporters view Trump as their second option.
• Haley is the second choice of 6% of Trump backers and 15% of DeSantis supporters. Pence is the second choice of 17% of Trump supporters and 16% of DeSantis backers.
• Far more of Trump's supporters (17%) than DeSantis' backers (5%) are uncertain about where their loyalties would fall if their first choice weren't in the race.
• A hypothetical head-to-head matchup shows President Joe Biden with a 3- point lead over Trump and a 2-point lead over DeSantis. Since early this month, DeSantis has held no advantage over Biden, as opposed to previous polls carried out since December that would sometimes give DeSantis a modest lead.

The survey was carried out between March 17-19 among 3,394 potential Republican primary voters, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-2 percentage points.