Morning Consult Poll: 52 Percent of GOP Voters Want Trump in '24 (Newsmax)
By Eric Mack | Friday, 23 September 2022 01:54 PM EDT
A majority of Republican voters (52%) prefer Donald Trump for president in 2024, according to the latest Morning Consult/Politico poll.
While that number appears to be a modest majority after 57% said the same right after the FBI raided Trump's private residence at Mar-a-Lago, it makes the former president a favorite over the prospective 2024 GOP primary field, Politico reported. Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is at just 19% as the runner-up in the poll.
"It is so obvious this is a political stunt designed to stop the president from running in 2024," Peter Navarro, former Trump White House trade adviser, said of the raid. "They might have been able to get away with it if they hadn't killed the economy.
"But that is the dealbreaker, juxtaposed against their history of going after a man who did nothing but save jobs."
Notably, DeSantis has gained just 1 point in the poll amid recent attacks on Trump.
"I don’t think there's any stunt that DeSantis can attempt that will dislodge Trump as the clear front-runner in this race at this point," a Trump adviser told Politico. "With Trump at the center of the Democrat media hate-machine, it's going to be nearly impossible to dislodge him from Republican voters."
Trump has raised funds off the attacks, but President Joe Biden and his fledgling administration remain the best advocate for the former president.
"In Washington we are obsessed with talking about issues that real voters don't worry about,” Republican strategist Corry Bliss told Politico. "In the real world, people care about how much their groceries cost, how much crime is in their community, and they blame one thing and one thing only, and that's Joe Biden."
The top issues for midterm voters:
- Economic issues: taxes, wages, jobs, unemployment, and spending – 42%
- Border – 12%
- Abortion – 12%
Of those key issues, only abortion animates the leftist voters.
"Dobbs [Supreme Court ruling] was a super-animating thing for the left, and we needed something and this was something — and it honestly only affects a certain portion of the Republican electorate, but it inflamed some of the preferences and excitement about Trump running in 2024," a GOP strategist told Politico.
"You might not love him, but he's still the figurehead of the party, so when he's under attack — and we saw this for the last six years — any time he's under attack, Republican voter-support hardens."
Morning Consult polled 2,005 registered midterm voters Sept. 16-18 for Politico. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.