Iowa poll shows Scott gaining on DeSantis; Trump with commanding lead

A new poll out of Iowa shows Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) gaining momentum on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in the 2024 presidential race, though former President Trump maintains a commanding lead.

The survey, which was paid for by the Trump campaign and shared exclusively with The Hill, found 46 percent of likely GOP caucus participants in the Hawkeye State support the former president.

It found 16 percent of those surveyed said they support DeSantis, who is running in second place. And it showed Scott polling in third place with 10 percent support.

Scott entered the race the same week as DeSantis, and he has typically polled in single digits on the national level. A super PAC backing the senator announced this week it would spend $40 million on TV and digital ads in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina this fall to further boost Scott’s White House bid.

This latest poll comes about six months before the state’s caucuses.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the conservative entrepreneur, polled at 5 percent, followed by Nikki Haley, Mike Pence and Chris Christie, all of whom polled at 3 percent. Ten percent of those surveyed said they were still undecided.

The poll also found that more voters trusted Trump over DeSantis to protect Social Security and farmers as well as to “fight the woke mob” by double-digit margins. DeSantis has made combating “wokeism” a key theme of his campaign.

The poll was conducted by co/efficient, a firm with a B+ pollster rating on FiveThirtyEight.

It surveyed 2,283 likely Republican Iowa caucus participants and was conducted from July 15-17 via mobile text responses and landline phone interviews. The poll has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.

Polling out of Iowa, which will hold the first caucus on the GOP primary calendar on Jan. 15, 2024, has consistently shown Trump leading, to varying degrees. 

A poll conducted in early July by National Research for the conservative group American Greatness showed Trump at 44 percent, with DeSantis at 21 percent and Scott at 7 percent. And a poll conducted from May 30 to June 1, sponsored by the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down, put Trump at 39 percent, DeSantis at 29 percent and Scott at 7 percent.

An Emerson College poll conducted days before DeSantis officially entered the race found Trump with a 42-point lead over the Florida governor.

DeSantis’s campaign has endured scrutiny in the roughly two months since it launched, with numerous reports this week about plans for a reset as the governor sets his sights on early primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Trump’s lead in the polls comes despite a few high-profile controversies in Iowa the past two weeks that have left strategists and other campaigns wondering if the former president is vulnerable in the Hawkeye State.

Trump drew criticism from Iowans earlier this month for his broadside against Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) when he complained about her “neutral” approach to the 2024 caucuses in her state after she appeared at multiple events with DeSantis.

The former president ruffled feathers days later when he opted to skip a summit in Des Moines hosted by The Family Leader, a major evangelical group in Iowa, which was attended by most other 2024 candidates and moderated by Tucker Carlson.

Iowa lawmaker Jeff Reichman (R), a first-term state senator, announced that same week he was flipping his support from Trump to DeSantis in the primary.