I wrote a week ago about an Echelon Insights poll of Michigan showing Ron DeSantis leading Donald Trump by five points, 47 percent to 42 percent. Monday, Echelon released another poll showing DeSantis polling slightly ahead in a state at the core of Trump’s primary base: New York.
New York is, of course, Trump’s home state, where he was a universally known tabloid figure long before The Apprentice, let alone his presidential campaign. He’s the most thoroughly New York figure among the seven presidents from the Empire State. In the 2016 primaries, New York was the first state to give Donnie from Queens a majority of the vote. Between Iowa on February 1 and Wisconsin on April 5, Trump cleared 50 percent only once (in the Northern Mariana Islands), with his strongest states being Massachusetts (49 percent), Mississippi (47.2 percent), Arizona (45.9 percent), Nevada and Florida (each 45.7 percent). But on April 19, 2016, Trump romped to 59.2 percent in his home state, and that mathematically eliminated Ted Cruz from gaining a majority of the delegates at the convention and kicked off a sweep the following week of Trump majorities in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware.
Nearly seven years later, things have changed. Echelon polled only a two-man race, which favors DeSantis compared with real-world primary conditions — but then, in the current calendar, New York is set to hold its primary on April 30, 2024. At that point, it seems unlikely that more than two real contenders will be standing (and if there are, that is probably excellent news for Trump). The poll shows DeSantis up 45 percent to 44 percent in a head-to-head matchup, with 12 percent undecided. That is effectively a dead heat, which is nonetheless promising for DeSantis in the state Trump called home for seven decades. Then again, DeSantis campaigned for Lee Zeldin in New York in 2022; Trump didn’t. Zeldin returned the favor appearing with DeSantis on Staten Island last Monday.
Trump has been rebounding lately in national polls, while DeSantis is on his book tour but coy about a presidential run. Drilling into the question of Trump’s floor and ceiling of support, Echelon finds that 28 percent of respondents said they would definitely back Trump, and 14 percent said they definitely would not, no matter what; a majority remain open to either Trump or an opponent. DeSantis may have an edge, but his work will be cut out for him.
Echelon’s poll was taken of 600 self-identified likely Republican primary voters surveyed between February 21-23, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.