Former President Donald Trump has increased his overwhelming lead over the rest of the Republican field in the first primary contest state of Iowa with 51% of first choice-support, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has edged ahead of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for a second place, a new poll shows.
The Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll, released Monday morning, shows Trump, 77, with the largest lead it has ever recorded so close to a GOP caucus — up from 43% in an October Iowa Poll.
DeSantis, 45, who had tied with Haley, 51, with 16% support for a distant second place in October, has widened his lead by 3 percentage points to 19% after visiting every county in the Hawkeye State.
Haley, despite landing a major endorsement from the Koch political network’s Americans For Prosperity Action super PAC last month, failed to gain momentum and plateaued at 16% support in the new Iowa Poll.
The rest of the shrinking GOP field has remained firmly in the low single digits.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy came in fourth with 5% support — up from 4% in October — followed by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie staying flat at 4%. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson was at 1% and Texas pastor Ryan Binkley continued to poll at 0%.
“The field may have shrunk, but it may have made Donald Trump even stronger than he was,” pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. polling firm, which conducted the Iowa Poll, told the Des Moines Register.
“I would call his lead commanding at this point. There’s not much benefit of fewer candidates for either Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley.”
Overall, 76% of likely Republican caucusgoers say they are considering caucusing for Trump on Jan. 15, up from 67% in October.
That figure includes 51% who say he is their first choice, 13% who say he is their second choice and 11% who say they are actively considering him.
The ex-president also had the largest share of “very favorable” ratings among poll respondents at 49%, compared to DeSantis’ 24% and Haley’s 20%, and leads his challengers among every demographic, according to the poll.
The number of likely GOP caucusgoers who are confident that Trump can defeat President Biden in a hypothetical general election rematch has increased 8 percentage points to 73% since October — even as Trump faces 91 felony charges across four separate criminal cases.
Only 24% of poll respondents said that the 45th president’s legal woes will make it nearly impossible for him to trounce Biden next November.
The Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll surveyed 502 likely Republican caucus-goers via telephone from Dec. 2-7 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4%.
Meanwhile, new CNN polls have fond that Trump now has leads over Biden in Michigan and Georgia — two key battleground states that the sitting president won in 2020.
In Georgia, 49% of polled registered voters said they preferred Trump, compared to 44% who picked Biden.
In Michigan, the former president captured 50% of support to Biden’s 40% among poll respondents.