I previously wrote about polls including the Monmouth Poll indicating former President Donald Trump developing a lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination. While Trump has declared for 2024, DeSantis has not yet formally declared, although every sign would indicate that he intends to run.
The Monmouth Poll had showed a steady rise in the poll for Trump since January. After the news that an indictment might be dropped on Trump by the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, his lead continued to climb.
It was announced on Thursday that the New York grand jury had voted to indict Trump.
But a poll that hit the news the day before showed that Trump is continuing to surge. Last month, he was up by 15 points, 43 percent to 28 percent. Trump has now doubled his lead and is leading over DeSantis by 30 points. It’s now 54 percent to 24 percent.
No one else hits double digits. Mike Pence comes in third with 6%, Liz Cheney and Nikki Haley receive 3% each, and Greg Abbott comes in at 2%. All others receive 1% support or less, and just 3% are unsure.
Trump made gains among almost every key demographic except for White men with a college degree, where DeSantis is up by 12 points.
Among the subgroup of voters who backed Trump in the 2020 general election, 60% support him in the GOP primary, while 25% go for DeSantis and 5% for Pence.
When asked who their second choice would be, Trump primary voters would back DeSantis, and the Florida governor’s primary voters would return the favor and go for Trump.
According to pollster Daron Shaw who helps conduct Fox polls, the rumor of the indictment helped Trump since people saw the case as “politically motivated, and it reanimates feelings that Trump is still fighting forces they see as corrupt and out of control.”
Now with the indictment, expect more support to rally around Trump as people look at the unfair action being taken to try to take him down.
A Breaking 911 poll which isn’t a scientific poll showed far and away that people believed the indictment against Trump was political.
B911 POLL: Do you believe the indictment of Former President Trump was politically motivated? https://t.co/XqxXbMBcSC
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 30, 2023
Meanwhile, with Trump’s lead advancing in his primary fight, when it comes to Joe Biden, even the Democrats in deep blue New York aren’t happy with him. As Trump is surging in the Fox Poll, 52 percent of Democratic primary voters say they don’t want Biden to be the nominee. Of course, the problem is they don’t have a lot of people on the bench that anyone wants.
Biden’s job rating is underwater by 12 points among registered voters (44%-56%) and his approval among Democrats is near a record low (81% approve vs. 78% low). Moreover, 44% of those Democrats who approve of him want someone else to run (50% would keep him).
Biden has also not formally declared yet, although he has indicated he will likely be running.
But this indictment is likely to help Trump, at least in the primary, because it helps to show the reality of what he has been saying for years — in very sharp focus — that they will do anything they can to try to get him. People who may not have seen it before are seeing it now, and it’s a scary thing what’s being done to our system.
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