Republican Voters Ditch Trump?

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

A new poll released on Thursday (April 22) found that 7 out of 10 Americans, including 44 percent of Republicans, do not want former President Donald Trump to reach the White House in 2024.

The poll carried out by the Associated Press and NORC, the University of Chicago’s research center, showed 93 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents do not want the former President to run again.

Respondents with a college degree were more likely to believe Trump shouldn’t run again than those without, although a majority of both groups — 80 percent and 65 percent, respectively — said that they wouldn’t want the former President shouldn’t run again.

The results come from polls that show Trump widening his lead in a hypothetical GOP primary against potential challenger Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Although DeSantis has not officially announced a presidential campaign, he is expected to enter the race.

A poll by the Wall Street Journal released this week showed Trump ahead of DeSantis by 13 points.

Harvard’s CAPS-Harris poll showed him ahead of the Florida governor by 35 points. He has an even bigger lead than other current or potential GOP candidates, according to polls.

Despite most Americans not wanting him to run, an AP-NORC poll found Trump has the highest approval rating of any GOP candidate.

Thirty-four percent of respondents shared a favorable view of Trump, including four percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans.

Former Vice President Mike Pence and DeSantis are slightly behind at 33 and 31 percent of all respondents, respectively, according to the survey.

The survey found that President Biden is the most popular of all the candidates included, with 5 percent of respondents having a favorable opinion of him. As with Trump, respondents’ opinion of Biden is overwhelming: 81 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans view the President favorably.

The poll also found that most Americans thought Trump broke the law with his alleged attempts to interfere in counting votes in Georgia’s 2020 election. Fewer respondents, though still more than forty percent, said the former President’s alleged actions are now the focus of several other investigations.