Trump holds wide lead over DeSantis among Georgia GOP voters in a 2024 primary poll despite the ex-president's endorsement flops against top state Republicans last year
- Donald Trump holds a wide lead over Ron DeSantis in a new Georgia GOP presidential poll.
- Trump led DeSantis 51%-30% with all candidates in the race and led 51%-41% in a one-on-one matchup.
Former President Donald Trump boasts a wide lead over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in a recent 2024 presidential poll of Georgia Republican voters. The results show the ex-president's continued dominance over the party despite his high-profile endorsement misfires against GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last year.
In a poll conducted by the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia, Trump led DeSantis 51%-30%, with 4% backing former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, 2% supporting former Vice President Mike Pence, and 1% indicating support for Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina; 7% of respondents said they were undecided.
While Trump, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination for the third time, jumped into the race last November, DeSantis — widely seen as his top competitor — has not yet officially announced but is expected to do so in the coming months.
Haley joined the GOP contest in February and Pence continues to mull a potential presidential campaign.
Despite the conservative credentials of the candidates — present and future — Trump has managed to cast a wide shadow over the party even after leaving the White House more than two years ago.
The survey revealed that Trump retains an advantage with the party's most conservative voters, as well as those who are older and those who do not have a college degree.
DeSantis performed better in the poll among Republican college graduates and was competitive with Trump among higher-income members of the party.
In a one-on-one matchup, Trump still led DeSantis, albeit by a narrower 51%-41% edge.
When it came to the recent indictment of Trump by the Manhattan district attorney's office over the former president's involvement in a hush-money payment to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, 89% of GOP voters said the indictment shouldn't bar him from seeking the presidency again.
Trump also faces a potential indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over 2020 election interference, which could also ensnare other Republican leaders in the Southern swing state.
In 2020, now-President Joe Biden won Georgia by about 12,000 votes, out of almost 5 million ballots cast, much to the consternation of Trump, who has called the victory into question despite no verifiable cases of mass fraud and multiple state officials having expressed confidence in the results.
Immediately after the election, Trump prodded Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help him overturn Biden's win, but both rejected his entreaties. Trump then vowed political revenge, backing GOP primary challengers to both Kemp and Raffensperger in the 2022 midterms.
The challengers, former Sen. David Perdue and then-Rep. Jody Hice, were both soundly defeated in their respective gubernatorial and secretary of state primaries. And while Trump strongly backed former NFL player Herschel Walker's Senate bid against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock last year, the former president did not appear with Walker in the lead-up to the December runoff election.
Warnock went on to defeat Walker in the Senate race 51.4% to 48.6%.
The University of Georgia polled 983 likely Republican primary voters from April 2 through April 7 and April 10 through April 13. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.