Not only does former President Donald Trump maintain a double-digit lead over Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis (46%-31%), but 68% of likely GOP primary voters say they must support Trump to keep Democrats from winning after investigations and his indictment.
Just 26% of GOP voters believe the investigations, indictments, and Democrat-pushed vitriol against Trump are pushing them to support someone else because it is imperative to keep Democrats from winning the White House in 2024, according to the NBC News poll released Sunday.
As strong as the GOP has coalesced behind Trump, the numbers tell the converse tale for President Joe Biden: 70% of all Americans — including 51% of Democrats — say Biden should not run again. Just one-third of Republicans say the same of Trump.
"It's clear that people do not want a Biden-Trump rematch," Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies told told NBC News.
Despite the anti-Biden sentiment, Democrats and Americans are not going to get their wish, as GOP primary voters are, apparently.
"At this stage, 2024 is shaping up to be a sequel of the 2020 election," Democrat pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research told NBC. "Sequels are frequently hits at the box office, but apparently not at the ballot box."
There were 47% of registered voters who vow to vote for the GOP nominee, while just 41% are strongly behind voting for Biden.
Trump's base has long been rock-solid, but it might be growing amid the Democrat attempts to stop him from running again, according to NBC News.
The GOP primary polling results:
- Trump 46%.
- DeSantis 31%.
- Former Vice President Mike Pence 6%.
- Former Trump administration U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley 3%.
- Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., 3%.
- Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson 3%.
- Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy 2%.
Biden is still dangerously low at 41% job approval among American adults (a majority 54% disapproval), down from January (45% approve, 50% disapprove).
"President Biden’s numbers are not where they need to be at this stage," Horwitt lamented, pointing to weakness among independents.
"Yes, Joe Biden has work to do, but he still is viewed less negatively than Donald Trump."
Those are figures from a decidedly heavy Democrat- and independent-leaning sample, too.
The Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies conducted the poll for NBC News among 1,000 adults April 14-18. The 800 registered voters included 292 GOP primary voters. the margins of error are plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the whole sample, 3.46 points for the registered voters, and plus or minus 5.99 points for GOP primary voters.
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