Yikes: DeSantis Leads Trump by 14 Points in New GOP Primary Poll?

This poll will not sit well at Mar-a-Lago.

New numbers from the Wall Street Journal finds Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leading former President Donald Trump by 14 points in a hypothetical primary match-up in 2024. The WSJ, it’s worth noting, has come out in favor of ditching Trump in 2024 so it’s not surprising they’d be putting out these flashy numbers giving DeSantis quite a boost.

The good news for Trump is that this is a head-to-head poll versus polling which includes a slew of other possible GOP contenders. In reality, the 2024 GOP primary field will probably be much larger. Either way, it’s a stomach-churning number for Trump world to swallow:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis edged out former President Donald Trump in a new Wall Street Journal poll of primary voters that pits the two Republicans against each other as top contenders for the GOP nomination in 2024.

Fifty-two percent of likely GOP primary voters in the poll preferred DeSantis, compared to the 38 percent who favored Trump in a hypothetical primary race for the Republican nomination. The poll also demonstrated DeSantis’ popularity among likely primary voters, with 86 percent saying they view the Florida governor favorably. Trump’s favorability rating came in at 74 percent.

Trump’s “Special Announcement” on Thursday, that he has licensed his image to a line of NFT trading cards, won’t help much with weary supporters waiting for more action on his 2024 campaign front. The current conventional wisdom seems to be that Trump’s support is softening among some of his most loyal backers while everyone takes a breath from politics for a month.

Trump made a nod to his 14-point deficit against DeSantis in a post on Truth Social calling it the “same old ‘stuff’ from the Wall Street Journal”:

Great polling has just come out on me versus various others, including Biden, but I still have to put up with the same old “stuff” from The Wall Street Journal, which has lost an incalculable amount of influence over the years, and Fox News, whose polls on me have been seriously WRONG from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower. Same thing happened in 2016, where Fox and the WSJ went out of their way to give me bad coverage and polling, and say I couldn’t win – UNTIL I WON!

There’s a saying that many observers keep tossing about. It’s a question along the lines of: “Yes, but what have you done for me lately?”

That’s the hole Trump is currently stuck in. With his first term filled with numerous points of success even while being cajoled and harassed over a fake Russian collusion investigation, then battered again in 2020 by Covid-19, most Republicans were still on board with giving Trump another term. In the 2020 presidential election, Trump expanded his vote count to the highest numbers ever received for an incumbent.

As each day ticks by, however, getting further removed from Trump’s first term success and as GOP voters look to the future, it’s getting harder and harder to argue that Trump should be the standard bearer moving forward. Polls like this will help drive that narrative home even harder.

However, if you take a step back, and look at the other polls, even some other Trump-DeSantis head-to-head matchups, the former President is still leading handily. There is a gut-check reckoning happening among the GOP while they mull how to re-take the White House in 2024. If Trump’s ceiling is limited, which could be evidenced by winnable midterm races in which Trump-backed candidates ended up losing, then the time for the party to split with Trump could be looming on the horizon.

DeSantis still lacks in name recognition but that might be an upside for him. As more voters get to know him and get to know his record in Florida, his numbers might actually improve against Trump.

What’s clear is that the two main favorites within the conservative base of the GOP are Trump and DeSantis. No one else has been able to break double-digits in terms of primary support.