Donald Trump’s popularity in Michigan is falling, according to a recent poll from the Detroit News.
Among likely Republican voters, the former president has a 76 percent favorability rating, which, while still a large a majority, is eight points lower than his approval in a similar poll back in May.
Especially interesting are the results of a hypothetical 2024 matchup between Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Trump wins that race among respondents by a margin of 45–42, which is within the poll’s margin of error of 4.4 percent.
At the same time, voters are still amiable to Trump’s being an active part of the state’s political process, and many side with him on issues impacting the state, most importantly, the validity of the 2020 election.
Trump has been quite vocal about his contention that the 2020 election was stolen from him through voter fraud, but Republicans in the state have disagreed. In June 2021, the state’s Republican-controlled Senate released the results of an investigation into the electoral results in Michigan.
While it found some potential for instances of voter fraud, it did not find anything systematic and concluded “that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan.”
Regardless, the majority of Michigan’s Republican base disagrees with the investigation’s findings, the poll found. Fifty-nine percent of respondents believed Trump’s stolen-election claim, compared with 26 percent who sided with the Senate.
There is also the issue of Trump’s endorsement in the state’s August 2 primary, which he has withheld thus far. Sixty-three percent of respondents said Trump’s choice of a candidate would be important, compared with 34 percent who said it would not. Though he has not made an official endorsement, Trump has spoken highly of Tudor Dixon, who has received support from the family of former education secretary Betsy DeVos.
The main conclusion we may be able to draw from the poll’s results is that, while Republican voters find Trump appealing on his own, they may find the grass is greener on the other side. Michigan Republicans like Trump and believe many of his claims about the 2020 election, but they might not think that he is the best candidate for 2024.
While Trump does win a potential matchup with DeSantis (within the margin of error), it is the only time that he does not carry majority support. This may have implications for the 2024 Republican presidential primary, when he will be compared to multiple other candidates vying for the nomination.
Trump has not had a major political accomplishment since leaving office, while DeSantis wins praise from conservatives seemingly every other week, and the recency bias it entails may be a factor in two years. By then, voters might like Trump, but they may like his opponents more.