As Donald J. Trump weighs whether to open an unusually early White House campaign, a New York Times/Siena College poll shows that his post-presidential quest to consolidate his support within the Republican Party has instead left him weakened, with nearly half the party’s primary voters seeking someone different for president in 2024 and a significant number vowing to abandon him if he wins the nomination.
By focusing on political payback inside his party instead of tending to wounds opened by his alarming attempts to cling to power after his 2020 defeat, Mr. Trump appears to have only deepened fault lines among Republicans during his yearlong revenge tour. A clear majority of primary voters under 35 years old, 64 percent, as well as 65 percent of those with at least a college degree — a leading indicator of political preferences inside the donor class — told pollsters they would vote against Mr. Trump in a presidential primary.
Mr. Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, appears to have contributed to the decline in his standing, including among a small but important segment of Republicans who could form the base of his opposition in a potential primary contest. While 75 percent of primary voters said Mr. Trump was “just exercising his right to contest the election,” nearly one in five said he “went so far that he threatened American democracy.”
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Overall, Mr. Trump maintains his primacy in the party: In a hypothetical matchup against five other potential Republican presidential rivals, 49 percent of primary voters said they would support him for a third nomination.
Asked of 350 respondents who said they planned to vote in the 2024 Republican primary in a New York Times/Siena College poll from July 5-7, 2022. Respondents who answered “someone else” or did not offer a response are not shown.
By The New York Times
The greatest threat to usurp Mr. Trump within the party is Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who was the second choice with 25 percent and the only other contender with double-digit support. Among primary voters, Mr. DeSantis was the top choice of younger Republicans, those with a college degree and those who said they voted for President Biden in 2020.
While about one-fourth of Republicans said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion about Mr. DeSantis, he was well-liked by those who did. Among those who voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, 44 percent said they had a very favorable opinion of Mr. DeSantis — similar to the 46 percent who said the same about Mr. Trump.
Should Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump face off in a primary, the poll suggested that support from Fox News could prove crucial: Mr. Trump held a 62 percent to 26 percent advantage over Mr. DeSantis among Fox News viewers, while the gap between the two Floridians was 16 points closer among Republicans who mainly receive their news from another source.
The survey suggests that Mr. Trump would not necessarily enter a primary with an insurmountable advantage over rivals like Mr. DeSantis. His share of the Republican primary electorate is less than Hillary Clinton’s among Democrats was at the outset of the 2016 race, when she was viewed as the inevitable front-runner, but ultimately found herself embroiled in a protracted primary against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Mr. Trump’s troubles inside his party leave him hamstrung in a matchup against an unusually vulnerable incumbent.
The Times/Siena poll suggested that the fears of many Republican elites about a Trump candidacy may be well-founded: He trailed President Biden, 44 percent to 41 percent, in a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 contest, despite plummeting support for Mr. Biden, with voters nationwide giving him a perilously low 33 percent job-approval rating.
A growing anyone-but-Trump vote inside the party contributed to Mr. Trump’s deficit, with 16 percent of Republicans saying that if he were the nominee they would support Mr. Biden, would back a third-party candidate, wouldn’t vote at all or remained unsure what they would do. That compared to 8 percent of Democrats who said they would similarly abandon Mr. Biden in a matchup with Mr. Trump.
In 2020, 9 percent of Republicans voted for someone other than Mr. Trump, while Mr. Biden lost just 4 percent of Democrats, according to AP VoteCast, a large study of the 2020 electorate by NORC at the University of Chicago for The Associated Press.
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Kenneth Abreu, a 62-year-old pharmaceutical executive from Pennsylvania, said he had voted Republican for three decades but would support Mr. Biden instead of voting again for Mr. Trump.
“Unlike all these other people who believe every word he says, I’m done,” Mr. Abreu said. “All the garbage he’s been talking about, the lies, Jan. 6, the whole thing — I just lost all respect for him.”
Still, many Republicans who favor someone else in a primary would nonetheless rally behind Mr. Trump if he won the nomination.
By focusing on political payback inside his party instead of tending to wounds opened by his alarming attempts to cling to power after his 2020 defeat, Mr. Trump appears to have only deepened fault lines among Republicans during his yearlong revenge tour. A clear majority of primary voters under 35 years old, 64 percent, as well as 65 percent of those with at least a college degree — a leading indicator of political preferences inside the donor class — told pollsters they would vote against Mr. Trump in a presidential primary.
Mr. Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, appears to have contributed to the decline in his standing, including among a small but important segment of Republicans who could form the base of his opposition in a potential primary contest. While 75 percent of primary voters said Mr. Trump was “just exercising his right to contest the election,” nearly one in five said he “went so far that he threatened American democracy.”
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Continue reading the main story
Overall, Mr. Trump maintains his primacy in the party: In a hypothetical matchup against five other potential Republican presidential rivals, 49 percent of primary voters said they would support him for a third nomination.
Asked of 350 respondents who said they planned to vote in the 2024 Republican primary in a New York Times/Siena College poll from July 5-7, 2022. Respondents who answered “someone else” or did not offer a response are not shown.
By The New York Times
The greatest threat to usurp Mr. Trump within the party is Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who was the second choice with 25 percent and the only other contender with double-digit support. Among primary voters, Mr. DeSantis was the top choice of younger Republicans, those with a college degree and those who said they voted for President Biden in 2020.
While about one-fourth of Republicans said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion about Mr. DeSantis, he was well-liked by those who did. Among those who voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, 44 percent said they had a very favorable opinion of Mr. DeSantis — similar to the 46 percent who said the same about Mr. Trump.
Should Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump face off in a primary, the poll suggested that support from Fox News could prove crucial: Mr. Trump held a 62 percent to 26 percent advantage over Mr. DeSantis among Fox News viewers, while the gap between the two Floridians was 16 points closer among Republicans who mainly receive their news from another source.
The survey suggests that Mr. Trump would not necessarily enter a primary with an insurmountable advantage over rivals like Mr. DeSantis. His share of the Republican primary electorate is less than Hillary Clinton’s among Democrats was at the outset of the 2016 race, when she was viewed as the inevitable front-runner, but ultimately found herself embroiled in a protracted primary against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Mr. Trump’s troubles inside his party leave him hamstrung in a matchup against an unusually vulnerable incumbent.
The Times/Siena poll suggested that the fears of many Republican elites about a Trump candidacy may be well-founded: He trailed President Biden, 44 percent to 41 percent, in a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 contest, despite plummeting support for Mr. Biden, with voters nationwide giving him a perilously low 33 percent job-approval rating.
A growing anyone-but-Trump vote inside the party contributed to Mr. Trump’s deficit, with 16 percent of Republicans saying that if he were the nominee they would support Mr. Biden, would back a third-party candidate, wouldn’t vote at all or remained unsure what they would do. That compared to 8 percent of Democrats who said they would similarly abandon Mr. Biden in a matchup with Mr. Trump.
For Mr. Trump, bleeding that amount of Republican support would represent a sharp increase compared with the already troubling level of the party’s vote he shed during his last race.In 2020, 9 percent of Republicans voted for someone other than Mr. Trump, while Mr. Biden lost just 4 percent of Democrats, according to AP VoteCast, a large study of the 2020 electorate by NORC at the University of Chicago for The Associated Press.
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Kenneth Abreu, a 62-year-old pharmaceutical executive from Pennsylvania, said he had voted Republican for three decades but would support Mr. Biden instead of voting again for Mr. Trump.
“Unlike all these other people who believe every word he says, I’m done,” Mr. Abreu said. “All the garbage he’s been talking about, the lies, Jan. 6, the whole thing — I just lost all respect for him.”
Still, many Republicans who favor someone else in a primary would nonetheless rally behind Mr. Trump if he won the nomination.
Half of G.O.P. Voters Ready to Leave Trump Behind, Poll Finds
Far from consolidating his support, the former president appears weakened in his party, especially with younger and college-educated Republicans. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is the most popular alternative.
www.nytimes.com