Donald Trump has almost doubled his lead against Florida governor Ron DeSantis since April among GOP voters, a new poll released by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday found.
According to the survey, Trump is the clear frontrunner with 59 percent of 600 registered Republican primary voters backing him as a “first choice” candidate. By comparison, DeSantis is the first choice candidate for only 13 percent of likely voters.
In April, a similar survey conducted by the same outlet found the gap between the two Republican presidential hopefuls to be just 13 percentage points in favor of Trump. At the time, DeSantis secured nearly a quarter (24 percent) of Republican primary voters.
Whereas 84 percent of Republican primary voters in April saw DeSantis in a positive light, by late August, that number had fallen to just 70 percent. Meanwhile, Trump’s favorability among core GOP members had experienced a marginal drop from 78 percent to 75 percent over the same time span.
“DeSantis collapsed,” Michael Bocian, a Democratic pollster, told the Journal. “The one candidate who back in April really seemed to be a potential contender, seemed to have a narrative to tell, has totally collapsed, and those votes went to Trump.”
The Journal poll also found a reordering of the GOP field with middle-of-the-pack candidates such as former vice president Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott, and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie all failing to grab at least 5 percent of first choice ballots.
Following the first Republican presidential debate in late August which found tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley widely touted for their performances, the poll showed the latter leading the pack after the two frontrunners with 8 percent of first choice ballots nipping at the Florida governor’s heels. Ramaswamy only grabbed 5 percent of such voters but is among the leading candidates in terms of “second choice” ballots.
Notably, when the Journal asked 1,500 registers voters across the political spectrum who they would likely vote for in 2024, Trump edged out President Joe Biden, by one percentage point.
“They don’t know how to run the country like Trump knows how to run the country,” one respondent told the Journal. “The country was a whole lot better under Donald Trump.”