Trump Retains 44-Point Lead With Republicans After Playing Hooky From Debate As Rival Inches Up

A new poll leading up to the 2024 presidential election revealed the lead of former President Donald Trump has stayed the same, despite sitting out the first Republican primary debate.

What Happened: Trump enjoyed strong leads in recent election polls among Republican voters ahead of the 2024 election. Support for Trump grew in last week’s poll, which came after a fourth indictment was announced against the former president.

The latest Morning Consult poll of GOP voters was conducted between Aug. 25 and Aug. 27, which came after the first Republican primary debate aired on Fox News, a unit of Fox Corporation FOXFOXA and was livestreamed on Rumble Inc RUM.

Trump chose to not participate in the first debate but enjoyed his own spotlight with a prerecorded video interview with Tucker Carlson released on X, formerly known as Twitter, five minutes before the debate began. The video had more than 70 million views during the debate and has over 200 million views now.

The latest weekly election poll by Morning Consult showed Trump with a 44-point lead for a second straight week, topping the leads of 41-points and 43-points he held in previous weeks.

Here’s a look at who Republican voters would vote for today, with the previous percentage from last week in parentheses.

Donald Trump: 58% (58%)
Ron DeSantis: 14% (14%)
Vivek Ramaswamy: 10% (10%)
Mike Pence: 6% (6%)
Nikki Haley: 5% (3%)
Chris Christie: 3% (3%)
Tim Scott: 2% (3%)

Why It’s Important: The latest national poll showed Trump continued to hold a comfortable lead over the other candidates despite skipping the debate.

Ahead of the debate, many polled thought that DeSantis and Ramaswamy would shine and could potentially gain in polls. Both candidates held the same levels from last week.

Ramaswamy ranks third at 10%, tying his all-time high since announcing his campaign. A Morning Consult poll had Ramaswamy as the winner of the debate with 72% saying he did very or somewhat well. DeSantis and Haley ranked second and third, respectively, at 65% and 64%.

Haley is the biggest mover in this week’s poll going from 3% to 5% of the vote, a move that comes as the former South Carolina governor ranked strong in polls about the first debate.

Scott, who was listed near the bottom of winners from the debate and also among those who had the shortest speaking time, lost one percentage point from last week dropping to 2% in the poll.

Among voters who select Trump first, 32% chose DeSantis as their next selection, while Ramaswamy was selected by 26%. This marked an improvement for Ramaswamy who was selected by 23% of voters on the same question last week, with DeSantis getting 33%.

Of voters who support DeSantis, 37% selected Trump as their next selection, 17% selected Ramaswamy, 16% selected Haley and 13% selected Pence. Last week, 38% selected Trump, 19% selected Ramaswamy and 15% selected Pence.

Trump led the way for the latest poll with a favorability rating of 76%, matching his total from last week. DeSantis went up one point from last week with a favorability rating of 63%.

After gaining in favorability in recent weeks and having a net favorable rating of +43 and topping the list last week, Ramaswamy lost nine points in his net favorability score after the debate. Ramaswamy has a favorable rating of 53% and an unfavorable rating of 19%.

Ramaswamy led the way in candidates who voters had heard something positive about at 43%, gaining from 39% last week. Ramaswamy also saw the percentage of people who had heard something negative about him rise going from 8% last week to 16% in the latest poll.

Haley saw a jump in her recognition scores with 29% saying they had heard something positive and 13% saying they had heard something negative. The majority — 58% — said they had heard nothing about Haley.

Photo: Shutterstock

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