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As GOP presidential candidates head into their second debate this week, a new poll shows that former President Donald Trump is staying dominant in the race.
Monmouth University released a new study on Tuesday focusing on the 2024 Republican presidential candidates, showing Trump with 55 percent of the support from Republican voters and runner-up Florida Governor Ron DeSantis trailing behind at 17 percent.
“The latest Monmouth (“Mon-muth”) University Poll finds most GOP voters continue to feel Trump would be their party’s strongest nominee in 2024 with very few seeing his legal woes as being of any real concern,” the study stated.
While many have speculated that skipping the debates would lead to Trump losing support, according to the poll numbers, it seems that many voters not only support him as the GOP nominee but also believe he would be the best candidate to take on Biden.
In fact, when Republican voters were asked about the 2024 general elections, “a vast majority” indicated that Trump would either definitely or probably be the “strongest candidate” to take on Biden.
“The vast majority of Republican voters say Trump is either definitely (48%) or probably (24%) the strongest candidate the GOP can nominate to take on Biden in 2024,” the study stated.
The numbers show that what competition Trump has is at a minimum, with all other candidates below 20 percent of the support. According to Monmouth, Gov. DeSantis has even dropped by “5 percentage points since July” when Republicans were asked in both an open-ended and closed-ended ballot.
Behind DeSantis, though, is former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, who currently stands in third place at seven percent, and Senator Tim Scott, R-S.C., in fourth place at five percent.
It is important to note from the report that 69 percent of Republican voters, both in support of MAGA and not, see Trump as more of a “political outsider” than his competition. By comparison, over 50 percent of GOP voters see DeSantis and Haley “as being more inside the political establishment.”
“A former president is seen as the ultimate political outsider. Let that sink in,” stated the director of the Independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, Patrick Murray.