A new Massachusetts poll shows Donald Trump with more than double the support of Ron DeSantis.
Trump leads the 2024 GOP Primary field with 45% of poll respondents saying they support the former President. That performance puts him 26 points ahead of DeSantis, who has just 21% support.
Other candidates and potential candidates are in single digits. Former United Nations envoy Nikki Haley’s 9% support puts her in third place, with former Vice President Mike Pence drawing 3% support.
Meanwhile, 3% of respondents say they want other candidates, with an additional 19% undecided.
The polling memo offers cautions despite Trump’s advantage.
“While Trump’s lead is significant, his failure to reach a 50% majority support threshold in either the four-way or two-way primary matchup indicates that he is far more vulnerable than in the 2020 Presidential Primary, where as sitting President he earned 87% of the vote,” the memo states.
“These results suggest the 2024 primary is more likely to resemble the 2016 primary election, where then-candidate Trump received 49% of the vote in a race that featured 13 candidates listed on the ballot.”
When other candidates are eliminated from the survey, DeSantis draws significantly more support, while Trump does not. Trump gains 1 point, drawing 46% support, with DeSantis’ 32% showing an 11-point gain. Undecided voters make up 22% of respondents in the binary survey.
The Florida Governor does better among some demographics than others, according to the polling memo. “While still trailing Trump, DeSantis performs relatively well among unaffiliated voters (-5% behind Trump), among men (-10% behind Trump) and in the northern and eastern parts of the Boston media market (-5% behind Trump, consisting of Middlesex, Essex and Suffolk counties).”
Massachusetts has an open Primary, unlike Florida, giving independent voters an option.
The survey of 475 likely Republican Presidential Primary voters from Boston’s Opinion Diagnostics was in the field after the former President’s indictment, from March 31 to April 1.
While neither Trump nor DeSantis have made much of a play in the Bay State, which goes Democratic in Presidential Election years, the former President did reference a former Massachusetts Governor when nicknaming DeSantis “Ron Dukakis.”
Trump’s historical dig refers to footage from the Fox News show The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, where the host savaged the presentation of DeSantis’ evolving position on Ukraine.
“Or as he should perhaps now be known: Ron Dukakis. Just like the hapless Democratic Presidential nominee in 1988,” Hilton contended, “DeSantis managed to look weak and incompetent all in one go.”
Hilton showed side-by-side pictures of Dukakis and DeSantis in military helmets, with the Florida Governor’s shot filched from his “Top Gov” ad which paid tribute to the movie “Top Gun: Maverick,” and showed the Governor in flight gear laying down “rules of engagement” for his ongoing battles with the corporate media.
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