In the latest sign that Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debate paid political dividends, Ron DeSantis is back in what one pollster calls a “solid” second place position afterwards.
An InsiderAdvantage national survey of 850 likely Republican caucus and primary voters conducted Thursday shows the Florida Governor with 18% support, nearly doubling his support from 9.7% in the previous administration of the poll Aug. 19 and Aug. 20.
DeSantis gained eight points in less than a week, and much of that came at the expense of the non-debating Donald Trump, who fell from 51% to 45%, meaning DeSantis’ deficit shrank from 41% to 27% in just a matter of days.
Nikki Haley is in third place in this poll, with 11% support. She previously was at just 4.8%, meaning she more than doubled her support after the debate in Milwaukee.
Vivek Ramaswamy has 7% support, a marginal improvement from the 6.3% he had previously.
“Although our survey showed that Vivek Ramaswamy won the debate by a narrow margin, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley were the two major beneficiaries of the debate when it came to the actual horse race. With a vast majority of respondents disagreeing with Trump’s decision not to debate, Trump held his lead but now has several candidates still alive in the race for the nomination,” said pollster Matt Towery.
“Our InsiderAdvantageAI debate reports indicated that Ramaswamy, DeSantis, and Haley had big nights Wednesday, but only DeSantis’s efforts, followed by Haley’s had an impact on the actual race,” Towery added.
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