Michigan Poll: DeSantis over Trump by Five

A consistent theme in early polling of the 2024 Republican primaries is that Ron DeSantis beats Donald Trump if the race comes down to a head-to-head, two-man binary choice. A new poll from Echelon Insights surveying Michigan Republican primary voters tells us that again: If offered only those two choices, 47 percent would choose DeSantis, 42 percent would choose Trump, and 11 percent are not sure.

There are a couple of new and interesting things here. First, this is Michigan, the ultimate Rust Belt state. Among all the states Trump won in the 2016 primaries and flipped that November, the one that represents the best case for Trump as the only Republican who could win there was Michigan. A national Republican had not won the state since 1988; Mitt Romney, who grew up in Michigan and whose father was the state’s governor, lost it by 9.5 points. In the 2016 primary, Trump won it by eleven points, getting 36.5 percent of the vote to 25 percent for Ted Cruz, 24 percent for John Kasich, and 9 percent for Marco Rubio. Then again, Trump won it in 2016 with 47.3 percent of the vote mainly because Gary Johnson and Jill Stein held Hillary Clinton to 47 percent; he owed a lot to the division of the opposition. Trump grew his share in 2020 to 47.7 percent but lost it to Biden, who cleared 50 percent.

A consistent theme in early polling of the 2024 Republican primaries is that Ron DeSantis beats Donald Trump if the race comes down to a head-to-head, two-man binary choice. A new poll from Echelon Insights surveying Michigan Republican primary voters tells us that again: If offered only those two choices, 47 percent would choose DeSantis, 42 percent would choose Trump, and 11 percent are not sure.

There are a couple of new and interesting things here. First, this is Michigan, the ultimate Rust Belt state. Among all the states Trump won in the 2016 primaries and flipped that November, the one that represents the best case for Trump as the only Republican who could win there was Michigan. A national Republican had not won the state since 1988; Mitt Romney, who grew up in Michigan and whose father was the state’s governor, lost it by 9.5 points. In the 2016 primary, Trump won it by eleven points, getting 36.5 percent of the vote to 25 percent for Ted Cruz, 24 percent for John Kasich, and 9 percent for Marco Rubio. Then again, Trump won it in 2016 with 47.3 percent of the vote mainly because Gary Johnson and Jill Stein held Hillary Clinton to 47 percent; he owed a lot to the division of the opposition. Trump grew his share in 2020 to 47.7 percent but lost it to Biden, who cleared 50 percent.