Who wins the 2024 Republican presidential primary is almost certainly going to come down to former and potentially future President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). While Trump leads the pack for now, DeSantis comes in at a distant second, and no other candidate in the field of over a dozen candidates has support in the double digits. DeSantis officially entered the race almost a month ago, and Trump has ratcheted up his attacks, with him and his supporters pointing to the lead that Trump still has over DeSantis.
On Thursday, Emerson released a poll showing Trump with 59 percent support among Republican voters, while DeSantis has 21 percent support. Former Vice President Mike Pence had 6 percent, and no other candidate had 5 percent support.
"Since April, Trump's support in the Republican primary has decreased by three percentage points, while DeSantis' support has increased by five points," the poll's write-up noted.
"In the past year, the Republican primary has remained statistically unchanged," Spencer Kimball, polling director at Emerson College Polling, noted. "However, DeSantis has made inroads with women voters over the last few months; Trump led DeSantis among women voters 58% to 17% in April, but now leads 53% to 26% in June, a 14-point improvement for DeSantis," he continued.
That poll was conducted June 19-20 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points among 1,015 registered voters, with 35 percent of respondents identifying as Republicans.
The Make America Great Again Inc. PAC tweeted out a graphic of the results, though without the poll numbers for each candidate over time.
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) June 22, 2023
RealClearPolitics (RCP) shows that Trump currently has 52.2 percent support compared to DeSantis' 21.4 percent support, for a spread of +30.8. Emerson is actually one of the polls showing Trump with a more commanding lead against DeSantis for now.
A full chart of the trends shows that Trump is close to his lowest in 30 days, which was 52.0 percent on June 15. DeSantis' 21.4 percent is among the highest support in recent days. Earlier this month, on June 3, it was at its highest at 23.7 percent on June 3, when Trump was at 54.0 percent.
The question isn't only whether DeSantis is gaining on Trump but whether Trump notices and if he's threatened by it.
Regardless of the answer, Trump and the Make America Great Inc. PAC have made much of the race about DeSantis, reserving much, if not most of, their criticism for the Florida governor in this crowded field. Earlier on Thursday, former Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), very much a Trump critic, announced that he, too, was throwing his hat into the ring.
MAGA Inc. sent out a statement on Hurd's record, including how he supported social media companies censoring Trump and was among 13 Republican House members in 2019 who voted to pass a resolution to end President Donald Trump's national emergency to build the wall.
That was fast. MAGA Inc, the pro-Trump pac, out with a fact sheet on Will Hurd, who announced his 2024 bid this morning: pic.twitter.com/d2lU7tKdHC
— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) June 22, 2023
The PAC also released a statement from spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt focusing entirely on DeSantis and how Hurd entering the race "means nothing for President Trump's standing, but means everything for Ron DeSantis, further underscoring how far Ron's star has fallen."
NEW Trump PAC spox reacts to Will Hurd announcement:
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) June 22, 2023
"Let’s be honest, Never-Trumper Will Hurd wouldn’t even consider getting in this race if Ron DeSantis’ campaign wasn’t in total free fall. Hurd’s entry means nothing for President Trump’s standing, but means everything for…
Ann Coulter, in her most recent column published for Townhall, warned against looking at the polls this far out from the election. As she illustrated:
Was every Republican required to stake out a position on Elizabeth Dole in 1999? One year before the 2000 election, Dole, the wife of the prior Republican presidential nominee, was nearly tied in polls with front-runner George W. Bush, son of the prior Republican president.
In 2007, the year before the next contested Republican presidential primary, poll after poll showed that the undisputed front-runner was world-famous former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Forty-four percent of Republicans said he had the best chance of winning and was the most "likable." Actor Fred Thompson was in second place.
In December 2011, Newt Gingrich was far and away the leading contender for the 2012 presidential nomination, with Republicans favoring him 37% to Mitt Romney's 22%.
In the end, I got as many delegates as Dole and Giuliani did. Gingrich won only two primaries -- South Carolina and his home state of Georgia -- coming in behind Ron Paul. President Thompson got nine delegates.
Regarding the 2012 presidential election, which ultimately resulted in President Barack Obama defeating Mitt Romney, Gallup reported on August 22, 2011, "Obama in Close Race Against Romney, Perry, Bachmann, Paul." A poll from that same month showed Romney with 48 percent support compared to 46 percent. Obama ultimately won with 51.1 percent of the vote.
We are still five to six months away from the Iowa Caucuses, sometime in January. Should Trump and DeSantis qualify for the first RNC debate, they will meet on the debate stage two months from today, August 23, in Milwaukee. To participate in the debate, beyond criteria such as polling and donors, candidates must agree to support the eventual nominee.
The RNC nominating convention takes place over a year away, July 15-18, 2024. We then have the general election, about 16 months away.