President Joe Biden leads all potential Republican challengers in a new J.L. Partners poll. But Gov. Ron DeSantis runs the closest of any declared Republican looking to challenge the Democratic incumbent.
Survey results published by DailyMail.com show that in a head-to-head matchup between Biden and DeSantis, 44% of voters support the President, but 43% favor the Republican Governor. That’s well within the poll’s 3.1-percentage-point margin of error.
Pollsters surveyed 1,000 likely General Election voters nationwide.
Notably, the poll still found former President Donald Trump leading the GOP Primary. Among Republicans surveyed, Trump holds a 30-point lead on DeSantis.
But in a head-to-head against Biden, Trump doesn’t do as well as DeSantis. The Democratic President leads the former Republican President by a 46% to 44% margin. While that’s still in the error margin, the poll also finds critical independent voters have a distaste for Trump.
In head-to-heads between Biden and any Republican challenger, independents favor the GOP candidate — unless the candidate is Trump. Biden wins independents by 5 percentage points when pitted against Trump, whom he defeated in 2020.
Meanwhile, DeSantis leads Biden 43% to 38% among independents. He also leads the Democrat among voters older than 45 and with Hispanic voters.
DeSantis isn’t alone in taking the independent vote in a one-on-one with Biden. Independents also favor former Vice President Mike Pence over the Democratic incumbent, 38% to 32%.
But Biden still edges Pence overall, 41% to 38%.
Another key takeaway may be that Democrats rally around Biden more strongly when facing either DeSantis or Trump.
But the Florida Governor appears to be the Republican candidate striking the greatest balance between holding together the Republican base and appealing to independent voters unhappy with the current administration.
The poll found former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in fourth place among GOP challengers. But the poll showed Biden leading in a matchup with Christie, 39% to 32%.
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