Former president Donald Trump has surged ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis in a hypothetical 2024 head-to-head match-up, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll found.
The new poll showed Trump leading DeSantis 47 percent to 39 percent among Republican voters, after previously trailing the Florida governor for the last three months. Earlier this month, DeSantis led Trump 45 to 41 percent.
The most recent poll found 49 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters prefer Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination over “someone else.” Earlier this month, 45 percent of voters said the would prefer Trump to “someone else.”
Trump remained in first place in a field of nine other potential GOP opponents with 45 percent of the vote — up from 37 percent earlier in February. DeSantis’s support has fallen from 35 percent to 29 percent. The other candidates did not show a significant change.
The former president was also ahead in a three-way match-up against DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Trump notched 43 percent of the vote, up 5 points from earlier this month, while DeSantis came in at 31 percent for a four point drop and Haley recorded 8 percent, a three point drop.
The poll also showed good news for Trump in a hypothetical general election match-up against President Biden. Trump now leads Biden 45 percent to 43 percent, marking the first time Trump has led Biden in a general election survey since last June, according to Yahoo.
The poll suggests Biden’s age could be a liability in the general election. Sixty-five percent of Americans said Biden is “too old for another term as president,” when told Biden would be 82 at the start of a second term and 86 at the end of it. Meanwhile, just 45 percent said the same of Trump when told he would be 78 at the start of his second term and 82 at the end of it.
The poll was conducted between February 23 and 27 among 1,516 U.S. adults.
The poll comes as DeSantis is set to attend Club for Growth’s annual donor retreat this weekend with other potential 2024 hopefuls, including former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former vice president Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott, New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu and Vivek Ramaswamy. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin were invited to the retreat but could not attend, CBS News reported.
While the retreat will be held just three miles from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, he was not invited to the retreat and will instead be at CPAC, furthering highlighting the widening rift in the GOP over Trump. DeSantis and Pence, meanwhile, declined to attend CPAC. Haley and Ramaswamy will attend both events.
The former president attacked Club for Growth in a Truth Social post on Tuesday calling the group “Club for NO Growth” and calling it “an insignificant group of Globalists who I have beaten badly because of their anti America First views. They will only get the ‘stragglers.'”