A survey released by The New York Times on Tuesday (12) indicates that former President Donald Trump has suffered high levels of rejection among Republican voters – 64% of voters under 35 and 65% of those with a college degree said who would vote against the tycoon in the primaries, the selection within the Republican Party that will define the acronym candidate for the presidential race in 2024.
Even so, Trump retains his preference in the party. In a hypothetical competition against five other Republican primary rivals, 49% of voters would support him to run for president, the poll, conducted in partnership with Siena College, showed. Looking at it from another angle, the numbers also indicate the loss of support for half of the party’s voters.
Trump’s loss of prestige appears to have been caused by his stance of refuting the 2020 election result and also by his supporters’ invasion of Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. While 75% of voters said the former president was “just exercising his right to contest the election,” nearly one in five said he “went so far as to threaten American democracy.”
The biggest threat against Trump within the party is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is favored by 25% of voters. He is chosen by younger Republicans, among those with college degrees and those who said they voted for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
Among those who voted for Trump in 2020, 44% said they had a very favorable opinion of DeSantis – similar to the 46% who said the same about Trump.
Trump would not necessarily enter the primaries with an insurmountable advantage over his rivals, the poll indicates. Her share among the Republican electorate is lower than that of Hillary Clinton among Democrats at the start of the 2016 race, when she was seen as the undisputed favorite but nevertheless ended up embroiled in a protracted primary competition against Senator Bernie Sanders. , from Vermont.
The poll further suggests that Republican fears about a Trump candidacy may be well founded: He trailed President Biden by 44% to 41% in a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 race despite falling support for Biden.
849 US voters nationwide were interviewed by phone between July 5 and 7. The margin of error is 4.1 points.
