From Yahoo News:
When asked in mid-October who they “would rather see” as the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, 45% of registered voters who are Republicans or Republican leaners said Trump. Thirty-six percent said DeSantis.
Asked now which of the two candidates they would “vote for” if their state’s primary or caucus were held today, the same group says DeSantis by a 47% to 42% margin — a net swing of 14 percentage points in DeSantis’s direction over the span of six eventful weeks.
Likewise, more Republican voters now say they want to see “someone else” (43%) as the GOP nominee instead of Trump (41%) — an 8-point decline for Trump (from 49%) and a 6-point increase for someone else (from 37%) since mid-October.
Yahoo News and YouGov did not create a formal “likely voter” model for this poll. Instead, respondents were asked if they voted in their state’s 2016 Republican primary or caucus — one of several possible predictors of future voting behavior.
Among the 24% of U.S. adults who say they cast a GOP primary or caucus vote in 2016, DeSantis already claims majority support (51%) in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, while Trump lags far behind (40%).