Former President Trump has retaken the lead from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) among likely voters in the 2024 California Republican primary, a new poll reveals.
In the survey conducted by the University of California-Berkeley’s Institute for Government Studies (IGS), 44 percent of likely voters in the Golden State Republican primary said they supported Trump, while 26 percent said they they supported DeSantis, an 18 percentage point lead over the former. president.
Just three months ago, the same poll found Trump trailing DeSantis by 8 percentage points, with 37 percent supporting DeSantis, who officially entered the race Wednesday, and 29 percent backing Trump, who launched his hat to the ring in November.
Twelve other Republicans were tested in the poll, but none received more than 4 percent of the state’s likely Republican voters. Thirteen percent of respondents answered “other/undecided.”
Among registered Republicans in the state, Trump’s favorability rating has risen in the past three months, while DeSantis’s rating has fallen slightly. From February to this month, Trump’s favorable rating rose from 69 percent to 74 percent, while Desantis’s dropped from 79 percent to 75 percent.
“The results indicate how difficult it is for Republican candidates to gain ground with Trump in the race. Even in California, where most voters view Trump unfavorably, his presence seems large, and Republican voters feel he is being treated unfairly in the courts and public opinion,” said IGS Co-Director G. Cristina Mora, in a press release accompanying the survey.
Berkeley IGS polling director Mark DiCamillo said Trump’s lead over DeSantis is wide, but the polls are especially good among Republicans, men, college undergraduates and voters 50 to 64.
The poll comes after Trump was found liable in a New York sexual assault case involving writer E. Jean Carroll. The poll polled likely Republican voters on their impressions of the case, with three in four respondents saying they believed it was impossible for Trump to get a fair trial in New York, while 66 percent dismissed the verdict as serious.
Eighty-six percent of California Republicans surveyed said they believe investigations into Trump’s actions after the 2020 presidential election “are more about politics and political vendetta than justice and law.”
Just 35 percent of all California voters shared that view, and two-thirds of the state overall said Trump could get a fair trial in New York and the jury’s verdict should be taken seriously.
The survey was administered May 17-22 among 7,465 California registered voters, 1,853 of whom were registered Republicans and 1,472 of whom would likely vote in the state’s March 2024 Republican presidential primary. The survey was co-sponsored by Los Angeles Times. .
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