So, it begins. Don’t shoot the messenger.
The first post-midterm poll asking about the 2024 Republican primary dropped today from YouGov and the results are somewhat surprising. Keep in mind these numbers were gathered from Wednesday to Friday last week, the height of the bad headline parade for Republicans hoping to ride the big, beautiful, red wave.
As it turns out, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is taking a lot of praise for his 20-point win last week at the expense of former Presiden Donald Trump’s popularity within the Republican base. Now you know why Trump has been lashing out at his perceived opponents as he fears a loosening grip on the GOP.
The split among Republicans is somewhat predictable, those who call themselves “strong Republicans” still prefer Trump, but not by much:
NEW: More Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents now say they'd prefer DeSantis (42%) as their 2024 presidential nominee over Trump than say they'd prefer Trump to DeSantis (35%). In an October poll w/@YahooNews, Trump was preferred, 45% to 35%.https://t.co/DKd1ugnNrs pic.twitter.com/i1OtpLVASJ
— YouGov America (@YouGovAmerica) November 12, 2022
According to YouGov, it’s “Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents” that prefer DeSantis over Trump in large enough numbers to put him on top nationally for the first time:
There is one area in which Republicans are rethinking their approach in 2024: More Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents now say they’d prefer DeSantis (42%) as their 2024 presidential nominee over Trump than say they’d prefer Trump to DeSantis (35%). That’s a reversal from nearly a month ago, when — according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll of U.S. adults — just 35% preferred DeSantis and 45% said they preferred Trump. People who say they strongly identify as Republicans are more likely to prefer Trump yet are still nearly evenly divided. Independents who lean toward the Republican Party, on the other hand, are more than twice as likely to prefer DeSantis to Trump.
If there’s a silver lining here for Trump it’s that the 2024 GOP primary will likely not be a two-man race. During the 2016 cycle, votes for other candidates splintered leaving Trump to win several states with anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the vote which is all he needed to gather steam. If, however, the field starts much smaller with perhaps three or four names, then the splintered field path becomes less tenable as more voters will coalesce around a Trump and plausible “not Trump” alternative.
For the moment, DeSantis is the “not Trump” flavor of the month. The question is whether he has lasting power and won’t fade in the coming months as so many other Republicans did when their star power burned out quickly in 2016. Only John Kasich and Ted Cruz managed to stick it out long enough to keep the primary competitively going, but Trump ultimately prevailed due to a bandwagon effect.
The wild card here is that Trump plans to announce his 2024 candidacy on Tuesday by all reports. Will that pull some of the DeSantis votes back to Trump’s column or solidify their current preference?
The current string of attacks Trump continues leveling at his perceived GOP adversaries isn’t helping the case and may end up doing more damage than any of the actual midterm results. More than anything, if Trump is not being viewed as a team player in terms of what’s best for the country, then he could end up driving more voters to another up-and-coming option once the Republican primary gets underway.
Stay tuned, it’s about to get messier.