CNN poll puts Trump at 53% in the primary, followed by Ron DeSantis at 26%

Donald Trump has the support of just over half of his party in this early stage of the race for the Republican nomination, reveals a poll by the CNN , highlighting the former president’s potential path to a third nomination — and the challenges serivals will face in the coming months to establish their own bases of support.

The field remains far from resolved. O South Carolina senator, Tim Scott declared his candidacy in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to announce his candidacy on Wednesday night (24).

Trump is the first choice of 53% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters in the primaries, nearly doubling DeSantis’s 26%. But the poll also found that a wide swath of Republican-aligned voters are willing to consider either, as are many other candidates.

More than 8 in 10 support or say they are open to considering Trump (84%) and DeSantis (85%), and smaller majorities say they support or would consider the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley (61%), Scott (60%) and former Vice President Mike Pence (54%).

Haley and Pence are currently the top 6% pick, according to the poll, with Scott in the top 2% along with the former New Jersey governor. Chris Christie and five other candidates have 1% support or less.

The survey also points out that most of the possible electorate has already discarded some names in the primaries.

60% say they would not support Christie for the nomination under any circumstances and 55% say they would never support the former Arkansas governor Hutchinson Wing or the governor of New Hampshire Chris Sununu respectively.

Trump’s substantial lead in first-choice support over DeSantis marks a shift from the March CNN , when the two were practically tied. This move in favor of the former president reflects the findings of other recent race polls.

Trump now leads DeSantis by similar margins among older and younger voters, an apparent shift from March, when his support was substantially weaker among those over 45 than among younger Republican-aligned voters.

The former president’s primary support now lags behind majority among some relatively small blocs of Republican and Republican-leaning voters — among them those who say President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory was legitimate (27% of whom support him). ), white college graduates (38%), self-described moderates or liberals (45%) and independents who lean toward the Republican Party (43%).

But voters in those groups have yet to unite more strongly behind any alternative, with DeSantis below the 30% mark in each group and other candidates further behind.

DeSantis’ best showing comes among self-proclaimed “very conservative” voters, 34% of whom support him, compared with 23% of those who describe themselves as “somewhat conservative”.

Roughly half of Republican and Republican-leaning voters, 52%, think Trump is highly likely to win the party’s presidential nomination for a third round, with another 35% saying it is somewhat likely and just 13% saying it is not very likely or no.

His supporters are much more likely to express confidence in his chances: 71% of those who consider Trump their first choice in the primary say he is at least very likely to win, compared with just 30% of those who do not currently support him.

Voters say they are satisfied with the options

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of registered Republican and Republican-leaning voters say they are at least fairly satisfied with their current choice of Republican presidential candidates, although only 18% describe themselves as very satisfied. Only 7% say they are not satisfied at all.

That assessment is similar to how GOP-aligned voters view their options in July 2015, shortly after Trump entered the race, albeit somewhat less buoyant than the Democrats’ assessment of their own primary choices in June 2019.

In the latest poll, Trump supporters are the most likely to be satisfied – 82% of those who named him as their first choice express satisfaction with their options overall.

DeSantis supporters are about as likely to be satisfied, with 79% saying they are.

Other Republicans are significantly less happy: only 47% of those who support other candidates or are undecided about who to support feel very or reasonably satisfied with their choices.

Many voters are, at least theoretically, open to considering multiple candidates, leaving room for the race dynamics to change in coming months – on average, GOP-aligned voters say they would be willing to consider the possibility of voting for around 6 of the 11 names tested.

Trump supporters aren’t necessarily locked into supporting him: Among those who consider Trump their first choice in the primary, 87% also say they would consider supporting DeSantis, 55% who would consider Scott, 51% who would consider Haley and 50% who would consider the radio host Larry Elder.

Likewise, among those who do not consider Trump their first choice, two-thirds (66%) still say they would consider supporting him. Only 16% of all GOP-aligned voters say they would not support the former president under any circumstances.

GOP-aligned voters who describe themselves as moderate or liberal are 15 percentage points less likely than conservatives to say they are satisfied with the GOP camp.

It is also relatively likely that they have ruled out the current top two candidates, with 31% of that group saying they would not consider supporting DeSantis and 26% saying they would not support Trump.

On the other hand, only 7% of conservatives say they would not support DeSantis and only 11% that they would not support Trump.

Roughly half, 51%, of those who deny that Biden legitimately won the presidency in 2020 say they would never support Pence, compared to 33% of those who acknowledge that Biden won.

And 3 in 10 white college graduates say they would never support Trump for the nomination, compared with 10% of non-degree white voters.

In a separate question, GOP-aligned voters were asked to pick three candidates they didn’t support but would like to hear more about: Scott (29%), DeSantis (28%), Haley (24%) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy ( 24%) topped that list. Only 7% expressed an interest in learning more about Trump, ranking him near the bottom of the list.

Overall, Trump maintains an overall favorability rating of 77% among GOP-aligned voters, with just 18% viewing him unfavorably.

By contrast, former Republican President George W. Bush’s rating is just 57%, with 29% viewing him unfavorably and the rest expressing no opinion..

Bush’s favorability rating is about 15 percentage points lower among Trump’s core supporters than among other party voters. Neither of the two living former Republican presidents is hugely popular with the American public.

Only 43% of adults have a favorable view of Bush and 37% feel positively about Trump.

The research of CNN was conducted by SSRS May 17-20 among a random national sample of 1,227 adults selected from a probability-based panel, including 476 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents registered to vote.

Surveys were conducted online or over the phone with a live interviewer. Results among the full sample have a sampling error of plus or minus 3.7 points; among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, the sample margin of error is 5.8 points.