While former President Donald Trump is a runaway in nationwide polling for the GOP nomination (29 points) over the field, and gaining, Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis can boast that he fares best against President Joe Biden in the latest NBC News poll.
Trump has picked up 5 points in support since April (46%) for a 51% majority in the GOP primary field, while DeSantis has lost 9 points (22%) from April, when he was at 31%. Trump turned a 15-point lead in April to a 29-point lead in June.
The GOP primary polling results in the Hart Research Associates (Democrat pollster)/Public Opinion Strategies (Republican) poll:
- Trump 51% (+5 points)
- DeSantis 22% (-9 points)
- Former Vice President Mike Pence 7% (+1 point)
- Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie 5% (not in April's poll)
- Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley 4% (+1 point)
- Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., 3% (no change)
- Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy 3% (+1 point)
- Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson 2% (-1 point)
- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum less than 1% (not in April's poll)
"None" was down 1 point (4% to 3%), while "other" was down 2 points (2% to less than 1%).
While prevailing theories suggest the large field is what is keeping DeSantis from catching Trump in the polls, this poll found in a head-to-head matchup between Trump and DeSantis, the former president led the governor 60%-36% (24 points).
In a silver lining for DeSantis' campaign, the Florida governor is a dead heat in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with Biden (47%-47%), while Trump trails Biden by 4 points (45%-49%) – just outside the margin of error.
The NBC News poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and Hart Research Associates. between June 16-20 among 1,000 registered voters, and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. There were 500 Republican primary voters polled with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.