Trump tops DeSantis by 15 points in Fox News poll

Former President Trump leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) by 15 points among GOP primary voters in a hypothetical 2024 match-up, new polling from Fox News shows.

The survey released on Sunday found Trump, who launched his reelection campaign back in November, in the lead among potential Republican primary challengers with 43 percent. DeSantis, who hasn’t formally announced he’ll run, followed with 28 percent. 

The Florida governor has been seen as a top potential rival to the former president, with other recent polling indicating a faceoff between the two would be close.

The Fox News poll put Trump and DeSantis at the top of a possible GOP primary pack of 15 potential contenders. Trump’s former United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, who kicked off her 2024 campaign earlier this month, was 21 points behind DeSantis, with just 7 percent saying they’d like to see her win the GOP presidential nomination.

Haley’s tied with former Vice President Mike Pence, who also earned 7 percent support. Pence hasn’t said he’ll run, but has hinted he could make a decision on the question this spring. Two other potential contenders, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), each pulled in just 2 percent.

Narrowing down the options to just Trump and Haley, the two GOP candidates who have officially said they’re in the running, 66 percent said they’d vote for Trump and 24 percent said they’d back Haley. 

Though not many candidates have entered the 2024 ring with Trump, some in the party are expecting a crowded field of GOP primary contenders.

The Fox News poll surveyed 1,006 registered voters from Feb. 19-22 and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points for the subset of voters who said they’d more likely vote in the Republican primary than Democrat primary. The survey was conducted with Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research.