OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump continues to demonstrate that he is the candidate to beat for the 2024 GOP nomination after picking up another key win over the weekend.
According to the Washington Examiner, Trump won the Pray Vote Stand Summit straw poll, released on Saturday, garnering 63.9 percent versus 27.3 percent for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a day after both addressed the event from the Family Research Center in Washington, D.C.
“DeSantis’s speech emphasized how he did not close churches during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Sunshine State, while Trump touted plans to launch a special task force to investigate people who are ‘political prisoners’ and have been persecuted by the Biden administration,” the outlet noted.
The outlet added:
No other candidate received more than 3%. Former Vice President Mike Pence got 2.2%, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) got 1.9%, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy got 1.7%, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley got 1.5%. The highest-finishing Democratic presidential candidate in the poll was President Joe Biden with 0.9%.
In the straw poll for Vice President, DeSantis led the field with 25.1%, Scott got 19.2%, Ramaswamy got 13.7%, and Haley got 12.5%. No other candidate got more than 10%, with Trump receiving only 1.2% of the poll. The pollster also says 17.4% of respondents wrote in a different candidate.
In the RealClearPolitics average of polling, Trump is towering over his opponents, holding a 40-point lead over the second-place DeSantis.
If Democrats and the Biden administration believed that indicting his chief rival would damage the 2024 GOP frontrunner’s brand to the point he would become an unviable contender, they were wrong.
Not only has Trump’s polling numbers rocketed since he was hit with four indictments in New York, Washington, D.C., Fulton County, Ga., and southern Florida, but he is also moving past Biden in critical swing states, according to a new survey.
“The states that had the narrowest margin of victory for either candidate last cycle were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with Biden winning all but North Carolina. Across those key swing states, Trump is ahead of Biden 41% to 35%, and 24% of voters remain undecided, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll,” The Daily Caller reported on Friday.
“Among independent voters, the former president also held a slight advantage over Biden, according to the poll. Trump received 32% support among independents compared to Biden’s 30%, and 38% were undecided. Uncertain voters favored Biden over Trump at 49% to 38%,” The DC noted, citing the survey.
In a hypothetical head-to-head contest for the 2024 election, Biden and Trump are deadlocked at 39%, as per the survey. Many voters cited concerns about the president’s age, along with worries about the economy and crime, as significant factors influencing their choice.
Meanwhile, Trump was leading his likely Democratic rival in several swing states, according to polling data from Echelon Insights in July.
The survey “found that 48% of respondents in swing states would probably or definitely vote for Trump, compared to just 41% for Biden. Though Biden is narrowly favored overall by likely voters, with 43% favoring him compared to 42% for Trump, the Republican front-runner could win 270 Electoral College votes by seizing the swing states,” the Washington Examiner reported.
Trump has been outpolling Biden in recent months. In May, for instance, an ABC/Washington Post survey showed him with a whopping 7-point lead over Biden, Mediaite reported.
“According to the survey, the president trails his predecessor by 7 points in a hypothetical 2024 general election matchup. Respondents were asked whether they would ‘definitely’ vote for Trump or Biden, ‘probably’ vote for Trump or Biden, or vote for someone else or not vote at all. Among those who ‘definitely’ prefer one candidate over the other, Trump leads Biden 36-32. But when those ‘probably’ voting are added to the tally, Trump’s margin balloons to 7 points — as he holds a 45-38 advantage over Biden,” the report said.
