Former President Donald Trump leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a 2024 head-to-head matchup, a recent YouGov survey found.
The survey, which focused primarily on the prospect of Trump and DeSantis running against each other in the hypothetical 2024 Republican primary race, asked GOP and GOP-leaning respondents who they would choose out of the two.
“If you had to choose, who would you rather see as the Republican nominee for president in 2024?” the survey asked.
Trump leads DeSantis by 11 percent in a head-to-head matchup — 47 percent to the governor’s 36 percent. Another 12 percent remain unsure.
When asked who they believe will be the 2024 nominee — regardless of who they personally prefer — 33 percent said Trump, while 27 percent said DeSantis and thirty-five percent said they are not sure.
The survey also cited a series of issues and asked respondents who they believe would do a better job handling them. For instance, 23 percent believe Trump would do a better job handling foreign policy, compared to ten percent who said the same for DeSantis, and 17 percent believe they would handle it equally well.
Trump appears to take the edge with the economy (25 percent to DeSantis’s 11 percent), taxes and government spending (23 percent to DeSantis’s 11 percent), and immigration (22 percent to DeSantis’s 11 percent), but DeSantis holds the edge with education (18 percent to Trump’s 13 percent) and the coronavirus (16 percent to Trump’s 15 percent).
The survey was taken February 22-27, 2023, among 1,000 U.S. adult citizens and has a +/- 3.4 percent margin of error.
It follows several other surveys showing Trump leading in the prospective 2024 presidential GOP primary, although only Trump, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy have formally jumped into the GOP primary field.
Notably, DeSantis has yet to announce his 2024 intentions, playing coy when asked.
