On the eve of the second Republican presidential debate, new polling has good news and bad news for Ron DeSantis.
Per the Morning Consult survey, the Florida Governor has his “best showing in weeks,” climbing back up to 15%. DeSantis hasn’t seen such heights since the middle of August in this poll.
That’s the good news.
The bad news in the new survey is that despite DeSantis’ incremental gains in recent weeks, he’s still 41 points behind former President Donald Trump.
Behind Trump and DeSantis: a lot of candidates in single digits. These include Vivek Ramaswamy (9%) and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (7%). That’s Haley’s best performance in this survey yet.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is at 6%, but with image issues noted in the polling memo: “The latest survey found 45% of potential Primary voters view Trump’s former No. 2 unfavorably, matching the share who hold favorable opinions for the first time.”
In the event Trump somehow exited the race, the polling suggests a third of his support would migrate to DeSantis, with another 25% moving to Ramaswamy and 10% to Pence.
Assuming DeSantis were to withdraw, 34% of his supporters would back Trump, with 19% moving to Ramaswamy, 18% to Haley and 12% to Pence.
The Morning Consult poll also gauged General Election contests between Trump and Joe Biden, as well as DeSantis and the current President.
Biden is up 43% to 42% against Trump, with 10% wanting someone else and 4% unsure.
Biden leads DeSantis 42% to 39%, meanwhile, with 12% wanting a third option and 7% unsure.
These surveys were conducted Sept. 22-24, including 3,552 potential Republican Primary voters who said they plan to vote in the Republican Primary in their state in 2024. More than 5,000 registered voters were asked about their General Election preferences.
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