Trump would beat DeSantis 24, Biden approval ranking underwater: ballot

Former US President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speak in a combination of file photos at midterm election rallies November 7, 2022 in Dayton, Ohio, USA and November 8, 2022 in Tampa, Florida, USA .

Gaelen Morse | Reuters

Ex-President Donald Trump would defeat Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by a wide margin in a hypothetical 2024 Republican presidential primary, according to a new poll.

Trump received 55% of the support of registered Republicans, while DeSantis, his potential rival for the White House nomination, received just 25%, the Emerson College poll found.

This poll was conducted last week after Trump announced that he would be running for the White House in two years.

On the Democrat side, President Joe Biden’s approval rating was just 39%, according to the poll, while 53% oppose his work.

That’s statistically the same result as Biden’s approval ratings in the previous Emerson national poll, conducted just before the November midterm elections.

And with a possible repeat of the 2020 election in 2024, Biden would defeat Trump by a margin of 45% to 41%, according to the poll.

If DeSantis were the 2024 GOP nominee, he would lose to Biden by the same margin, compared to 39% for the governor, according to the poll, which showed the Democratic incumbent would get 43% of the vote.

When asked about their preference for their party’s nominee in 2024, Democrats who responded to the poll overwhelmingly voted for Biden over Vice President Kamala Harris. Overall, 42% of Democrats wanted Biden to be the nominee, compared to just 17% for Harris and 12% for Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent.

The poll found an education gap among Republican primary voters, according to Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.

Voters with a high school degree or less support Trump at 71%. Voters with a college degree, college degree, or associate’s degree support him at 53%.

Republican voters with a postgraduate degree are the least supportive of Trump at 32%.

Among others, both Democratic and Republican respondents saw the economy as the most important issue, followed by threats to democracy, immigration, abortion, health care and crime.

Additionally, 52% of voters believe Congress should further investigate the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot by a mob of Trump supporters that disrupted Biden’s confirmation of the election victory, with 39% saying Congress should investigate set to.

The poll was conducted between November 18 and 19 with a sample of 1,380 registered voters and a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.