SHOCK POLL: Huge Chunk of Trump Base Would Back Him Running Third Party Against DeSantis and Biden

A new national GOP poll published on Tuesday has Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis beating ex-president Donald Trump by a whopping margin, but a dismayingly large percent of Trump loyalists saying they’d vote for him if he staged an independent spoiler run.

The new poll from The Bulwark and North Star Opinion Research (via Dynata) has an enormous lead for DeSantis, a bit of an outlier in recent poll results that generally but not exclusively lean Trump in a hypothetical 2024 match-up, and which whomever the winner, are not typically such a big margin.

Nevertheless, the result is eye-opening in several ways, but notable in particular, as Sarah Longwell explains for the Bulwark, for the GOP’s drift from Trump.

The poll identifies respondents by double selection. Those who identify first as Republican or as independent who leans Republican are divided by whether they consider themselves “more a supporter of Donald Trump, or a supporter of the Republican Party. This is the dividing line shown in the topline results.

So each of these two questions show the percent of the total, then the percent of those who identify more as GOP supporters, then those who identify more as Trump supporters.

Longwell shares the summary notes from North Star:

Donald Trump has slipped to his lowest point since he emerged on the political scene almost eight years ago. He remains a formidable force, to be sure, with a lock on approximately 30 percent of likely Republican primary and caucus voters nationally. But a majority of the GOP is ready to move on.

They caveat that early polling in Trump’s first run was similar, but one might respond to that caveat that the unproven candidate in a big field isn’t the same as the losing candidate in a smaller field with a looming figure like DeSantis.

But the stat that is getting maybe even more attention on Tuesday is the number of Trump voters who would vote for him if he ran independently.

That’s 69% of those respondents that said they are more Trump supporter than a GOP supporter (or 19.3% of those identifying as Republican or Independent/Leans Republican overall.) With those who said they have the “same” support for GOP and Trump added in with the 11% of those who said they are “more” a GOP supporter, and apparently that gets to 28% of the respondents, all of whom identify as Republican or as independent, leans Republican, who would vote for Trump as an independent candidate.

There is a difference between polling and the reality of going to the polls on election day, and as has been pointed out, there’s doubt that many GOP voters would follow-through and cast a spoiler for Trump if it came down to DeSantis vs. Biden.

But for taking the temperature, the two biggest takeaways are the crumbling of Trump’s grip on the party on the one hand, and the devotion of his most ardent supporters on the other.

It’s interesting to see it illustrated like this, but that dynamic has been and will remain the singular story of the Republican party’s 2024 prospects: The Trump loyalists vs. the rest of the GOP.

It’s playing out right now, in fact.