Republican primary voters not only consider former President Donald Trump more electable in the general election than Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, but Trump holds a 37-point lead in the primary race, according to the latest Morning Consult Poll.
The 37-point margin is Trump's largest lead yet, according to the daily 2024 GOP Primary Tracker:
- Trump 58%.
- DeSantis 21%.
- Former Vice President Mike Pence 7%.
- Former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley 3%.
- Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., 3%.
- Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy 3%.
Five candidates tied at 1% support: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott; South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem; Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin; Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Also, "someone else" came in tied at 1% with those also-rans.
Notably, Trump's GOP strength extends to the general election against Biden, too. In that field of 11 GOP primary candidates, Trump drew a majority support at 54% as the candidate with the best chance of defeating President Joe Biden in 2024.
Trump also held a 29% lead on DeSantis in general election electability.
"By a large margin, potential Republican primary voters say that it's Trump who has the best chance of defeating President Joe Biden in the general election," Morning Consult Poll analyst Cameron Easley wrote.
"The demographic makeup of the potential GOP primary electorate is revealing on this front. Confidence in Trump's electability is more pronounced among the voters who were chiefly responsible for his success in 2016: white voters without a college degree, who constitute the bulk of the GOP electorate in our sampling. A majority of them (60%) say Trump has the best chance of defeating Biden in 2024, compared with just 40% of college-educated whites in the potential primary electorate.
"DeSantis, meanwhile, is seen as the most electable candidate by 22% of whites without a college degree and by 36% of college-educated whites."
Trump has been pulling away from DeSantis after DeSantis trailed by 11 points in his high-water mark poll Dec. 31-Jan. 2, according to Morning Consult's daily tracker.
DeSantis' path to regaining lost ground is college-educated voters he polls more strongly with, according to Easley.
"If the Florida governor is going to make any headway against Trump as he prepares to launch his campaign this summer, the most obvious place to start is with the college-educated portion of the electorate," Easley wrote. "These voters are likely to be more receptive to the electability argument, and solidifying that segment of the base could provide momentum to a DeSantis campaign that appears to be flailing before it's even left the ground."
Morning Consult's daily 2024 GOP Primary Tracker was conducted April 21-23 among 3,640 potential Republican primary voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
The GOP primary electability poll was conducted April 20-23 among 794 potential Republican primary voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.