Haley Bumps DeSantis Into Third, But ‘Just Reshuffling the Bottom of the Deck’
Donald Trump posted his largest lead ever in the 2024 Republican primary for president, according to the latest national survey conducted by BIG DATA POLL for December. The former president leads former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 62.7% to 9.8% and 8.3%, respectively. Only 1.5% chose “someone else” and just 6.2% remain “undecided”.
That 52.9% lead is the largest margin ever enjoyed by the former president since tracking began after the 2022 midterm elections. Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis continued his slide, falling from 11.5% and now behind Ambassador Haley, who bumped Vivek Ramaswamy into fourth place at 6.7%. The businessman’s standing is down slightly from 7.1% in the previous national poll conducted in October.
“Again, while the media love a horserace, the truth is the least competitive primary for a presidential nomination in modern memory just got even less competitive,” BIG DATA POLL Director Rich Baris, said. “Not only am I hard-pressed to find a single demographic to indicate a lane opening for one of the bottom-tier candidates, I can’t find one that doesn’t look like it’s been closed by the former president.”
“The results bode well for the frontrunner, and the others are just reshuffling the bottom of the deck.”
President Trump has improved on his leads and maintains majority support across all education demographics to include 63.3% among those with a high school education or less, 70.8% among those with some college or 2-year degree, 54.2% among voters with a 4-year degree, and 53.0% with an advanced or postgraduate degree.
Support for the president has risen at or above 60% in all area types. Now, 64.6% of urban voters back President Trump, up from 58.7% in October. His support among suburban voters rose from 51.3% to 60.5%, and even rural voters inched their support higher from 63.0% to 65.0%.
The same is true of his support by region. The Northeast surged back to the president with 68.1%, up from 56.7% in October; the Midwest gained marginally from 60.0% to 61.3%; support in the South soared from 55.5% to 62.2%; and, in the West his support also rose considerably from 53.3% to 60.8%.
For the Democratic Presidential Nomination, incumbent President Joe Biden continues to hold a commanding lead over Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., 66.5% to 5.5% and 4.5%, respectively. Still, a nagging 9.7% chose “someone else” and another 13.9% remain undecided.
Interestingly, the percentages for both groups are higher than the Republican Presidential Nomination. Though roughly equal shares of registered voters report expecting to participate in the Democratic (44.5%) and Republican (45.8%) primaries, the continued reluctance to consolidate behind an incumbent president should be of concern for Democrats with just under 11 months before Election Day.
Methodology
BIG DATA POLL interviewed 3,011 registered voters nationwide from December 16-18, 2023 via mixed-mode to include 2,772 likely voters screened by self-reported likelihood to vote and vote history. Interviews conducted online are sourced through Lucid (CINT) and phone interviews including P2P SMS and text-to-online are sourced from the Aristotle National Voter File Database. Likely primary voters were further screened for eligibility by registration and intent based on open and closed primary systems by state to include 1,339 Republican primary voters and 1,298 Democratic primary voters. Results were weighted for gender, age, race and ethnicity, education and income, geography and region. The overall sampling error is +/- 1.8% at a 95% confidence interval. The sampling errors for the Republican and Democratic Presidential Nominations are +/- 2.7% and +/- 2.7% at a 95% confidence interval, respectively. It is important to note that sampling errors for subgroups are higher. All BIG DATA POLL publicly conducted surveys are crowdfunded via the Public Polling Project, supplemented if necessary by BIG DATA POLL and are NOT funded by or affiliated with any candidate, campaign, committee, or political entity. Full and interactive crosstabs can be viewed on MarketSight.
