As speculation for who will run against former President Trump in 2024 grows, a recent poll indicates who Americans are leaning toward when it comes time to cast their ballot.
Last November Trump announced his bid for a third White House run, while reports claim that Nikki Haley is planning a February 15 announcement. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla) is also expected to run in 2024, despite never addressing the rumors.
According to a new Marquette University national poll, 64 percent of registered Republicans say that they would vote for DeSantis over Trump if it happened to come down to the two.
Meanwhile, 42 percent of Republican voters are in favor of a DeSantis ticket, with Trump trailing closely behind at 30 percent and Haley at the end with just eight percent expressing support for her, accordion to a University of New Hampshire poll.
A similar survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, also found that Haley only gained three percent of support from likely Republican voters.
This comes after Trump publicly took swipes at his possible rivals, accusing DeSantis of being ungrateful and Haley of being “overly ambitious.”
During an interview with conservative radio host, Hugh Hewitt, Trump believes that Haley, DeSantis, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should not run against him because of their past relationships.
“I’ve helped all those people. I took Mike out of nothing … I believe he always said he’d never run against the president,” Trump said, adding “and you know, time goes by and then they want to run because they’re ambitious people. But you know, they’re polling very poorly.”
Despite reports claiming that Haley got Trump’s approval for her to run in 2024, the former president sang a different tune on Thursday.
“She said, ‘I’ll never run against my president. He’s a great president. He’s been our greatest president. I’ll never run. I’ll never run’… but Nikki suffers from something that’s a very tough thing to suffer from. She’s overly ambitious,” Trump continued.
At the same time, Trump took full credit for making DeSantis a political star, claiming that the Florida governor had nothing before him.
“Ron DeSantis got elected because of me. You remember he had nothing. He was dead. He was leaving the race. He came over and he begged me, begged me for an endorsement,” Trump said.
Looking at the polls, it seems that Trump only needs to worry about DeSantis beating him for the 2024 presidential Republican nominee. In several surveys, the governor has pulled strongly ahead of the 45th president and vice versa.