Former US President Donald Trump is dominating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, leading his nearest challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll published on Monday.
Overall, Trump led DeSantis 54 percent to 17 percent. No other candidate topped 3 percent support in the poll: Former Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott and Nikki Haley all won 3 percent, while Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie won 2 percent.
DeSantis performed his weakest among some of the Republican Party’s biggest and most influential constituencies, the poll found. He earned only 9 percent support among voters at least 65 years old and 13 percent of those without a college degree. Republicans who described themselves as “very conservative” favored Trump by a 50-point margin, 65 percent to 15 percent.
The poll found that if all other candidates disappeared and DeSantis got a hypothetical one-on-one race against Trump, he would still lose by a two-to-one margin, 62 percent to 31 percent.
The survey comes less than six months before the first 2024 primary contest and before a single debate.
It also comes days after additional charges of obstruction and willful retention of national defense information were filed against Trump in the classified documents probe.
Trump has continuously achieved good numbers in polls, even after his indictment in the classified documents case and a previous indictment over alleged hush money to actress Stormy Daniels.