Republicans in the Old Dominion State want their old President back.
That’s a takeaway from a new Roanoke College survey showing former President Donald Trump with majority support, well ahead of his two major opponents and the home state Governor, who is not running for President.
Trump’s 51% support dwarfs that of Ron DeSantis, who has 14% in the survey conducted from Nov. 12 to Nov. 20. Close behind DeSantis but even farther behind Trump are Nikki Haley and Glenn Youngkin, each with 10% support in the poll.
Haley’s surge is a major story out of this survey.
“While Trump’s level of support increased about four points from our last poll in August, Haley has seen the most significant shift in support since the August poll (+8% as a first-choice candidate),” the polling memo states.
DeSantis has gained just one point, meanwhile, suggesting a ceiling for the Florida Governor.
“Trump maintains a commanding lead over the rest of the Republican field. While the Republican presidential field is heating up with numerous debates, as well as some candidates — like Nikki Haley — seeing a modest rise in support in our poll, these dynamics do not seem to be affecting the most constant feature of the Republican nomination race so far; that is, Trump continues to be widely popular within the party and remains the favorite for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination,” said Bryan Parsons, senior political analyst at the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research (IPOR) at Roanoke College.
There was one piece of good news for DeSantis — he’s still the leading fall back option in the state.
“We also asked Virginians to report their second-choice candidate for the Republican nomination, where the results showed a more competitive field. Approximately 26% of Republicans reported DeSantis as their second choice, followed by Youngkin (19%), Haley (17%), Trump (15%), Vivek Ramaswamy (10%), Tim Scott (3%) and Chris Christie (3%).”
Virginia has 48 delegates at stake on a proportional basis. Ten of those are at-large, 33 are allocated to Virginia’s 11 congressional districts, and five will be allocated by other means. The Roanoke poll did not offer congressional district breakdowns, however, so it’s impossible to tell if DeSantis has a road to gaining some of the state’s bounty from the March 5 Primary.
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