Politico Poll: Trump Leads DeSantis, Very Large GOP Field by 14 Points

While major media has been billing Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis as a threat to former President Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP primary field, the latest Politico/Morning Consult poll taken just after the election still shows Trump holding a large lead.

Morning Consult's poll has Trump as a 14-point favorite over a very large field of potential candidates.

Trump made his official 2024 presidential campaign declaration Tuesday night at Mar-a-Lago in an address that aired live in its entirely on Newsmax. Other networks, including Fox News, cut away from Trump's speech at times.

The poll was concluded before Trump made his 2024 declaration to officially run.

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Almost half of registered voters and polled choose Trump (47%), while one-third chose DeSantis (33%). Former Vice President Mike Pence received just 5% support and none of the other 16-candidate field received more than 2% support.

The full results among the subset of 842 registered voters (742 Republicans and 100 registered independents who lean Republican) in the Morning Consult Poll conducted for Politico:

Trump (394) 47%.
DeSantis (279) 33%.
Pence (45) 5%.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (21) 2%.
Failed 2012 GOP presidential nominee Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah (20) 2%.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (8) 1%.
Former Trump administration Ambasador Nikki Haley (7) 1%.
Defeated Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. (7) 1%.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. (5) 1%.
Outgoing Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan (5) 1%.
Former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie (4) 0%.
South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem (4) 0%.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. (3) 0%.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. (3) 0%.
Former Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (1) 0%.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. (0) 0%.

There were 3% who supported "someone else" (23 respondents) not listed among those 16, while 2% of registered Republicans (18 respondents) replied they "would not vote."

Results such as these in past polls were read by Trump during a Saturday, Nov. 5 Save America rally in Pennsylvania when Trump coined the controversial term "Ron DeSanctimonious."

There remains months before the GOP primary field officially shapes up before debates and the early 2024 Iowa caucus, so other candidates could emerge, but presidential campaign fundraising requires the resources and big dollars most of those candidates have access to compared to others.

The RealClear Politics polling average, weighing three polls since mid-October, have Trump leading the field by an average of 25 points.

That includes the Harvard/Harris poll (Oct. 12-13) that had Trump leading a large field by 38 points, and The New York Times/Siena College poll (Oct. 8-12), where respondents picked Trump by 23 points over a smaller GOP field.

Among other key findings in the Morning Consult poll, when Democrats and independents were included:

72% say the country under President Joe Biden and Democrat control of Congress is headed in the "wrong direction," while just 28% said it was headed in the "right direction."
53% said Trump should "definitely not" run.
45% said Biden should "definitely not" run.
Just 43% approve of the job Biden is doing as president, while a majority (54%) disapprove, including 41% who "strongly disapprove."
A majority (53%) have an unfavorable view of Biden, including a plurality of 42% who have a "strongly unfavorable" view of the sitting president.
A plurality of 45% say the economy is the No. 1 issue, while women's issues were a distant second at just 15%.

Morning Consult polled 1,983 registered voters Nov. 10-14. There were 773 Democrats (39%), 742 Republicans (37%), and 448 independents (24%) surveyed. The poll included 47% that voted for Biden in 2020, 43% that voted for Trump, 2% that voted for someone else, and 8% that did not vote in 2020.

Notably, a high percentage of respondents were in the South (37%), where DeSantis is popular. The heavily populated and largely Democrat-controlled Northeast was represented by just 18% in this poll. The West, which includes the heavily Democrat coast, represented 23% of those polled, while the Midwest that includes the Democrat-leaning Rust Belt states was 22%.

The full results of the 1,983 respondents had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

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