(DCWatchdog.com) – A poll has found that former President Donald Trump’s popularity with GOP voters has spiked after his indictment and arraignment, resulting in his highest primary lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in recent months.
According to the latest public opinion survey by Morning Consult, Trump already has a 33-point lead over potential Republican presidential nomination rival DeSantis, who hasn’t even made his 2024 candidacy official.
The 45th president of the United States was arranged in a New York City court last week on 34 financial crime charges at the initiative of Manhattan’s Democrat DA Alvin Bragg.
“Trump’s criminal charges are breaking through,” writes Morning Consult analyst Eli Yokley, as cited by Newsmax.
The news outlet comments, “Democrats and anti-Trump forces are relentlessly attacking, investigating, and indicting [the] former president,” but their actions are backfiring.
“That 33-percentage-point lead over the past several days marks Trump’s largest since Morning Consult’s tracking of the hypothetical matchup began in December,” Yokley’s analysis adds.
Thus, according to the new Morning Consult poll on the 2024 GOP presidential landscape, 56% of potential Republican primary voters support Trump.
DeSantis, who reportedly plans to announce his candidacy in May, remains second with 23%.
Former Vice President Mike Pence comes in third with 7% support, followed by former South Carolina Governor and US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, with 4%.
Former US Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, an anti-Trump Republican called a “RINO” (“Republican in Name Only”) by the former president, is fifth with 3% support.
As per the poll results, six other candidates have about 1% support each among potential Republican primary voters: Texas Governor Greg Abbott, anti-woke entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, US Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.
According to Yokley’s analysis, the new poll results show the truth in the old saying that “there’s no such thing as bad press.”
“Potential Republican primary voters were 27 points more likely to hear something negative than positive about Trump recently, marking his worst showing in the buzz metric, even as he’s gained support and his favorability rating has ticked up following his New York City arraignment,” the Moring Consult analyst commented.
The report notes that the growing Republican primary field is helping Trump since his MAGA base remains rock-solid, while the anti-Trump vote is getting fragmented.
“Polls are looking great!” Trump wrote on Truth Social last weekend.
“New Poll, 61-19 against DeSanctimonious. Also, winning BIG against ‘Hopeless’ Joe Biden — hence the Democrats are rolling out their fake prosecutors. I hope Republican leaders are watching this. An eye for an eye?” he added.
The latest arrival to the GOP primary race, Trump critic Asa Hutchinson, has made no difference to the poll results.
“Hutchinson doesn’t make much of a splash. Nearly 7 in 10 potential Republican primary voters (68%) didn’t hear much about former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s announcement that he would seek the GOP’s 2024 nomination last week,” Yokley writes.
The Morning Consult survey was conducted from April 7-9 among 3,608 potential Republican primary voters with an error margin of 2 percentage points.
While Democrats and anti-Trump forces are relentlessly attacking, investigating, and indicting former President Donald Trump, the latest Morning Consult poll released Tuesday shows it has only strengthened him. https://t.co/x92cGj2LnA
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) April 11, 2023
