Republicans, Republican-Leaning Independents Shift In Who They Want To Be GOP’s Nominee In 2024: Poll

 Republican and Republican-leaning Independents have shifted their views of who they believe is the best choice to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2024.

A new survey conducted by YouGov after Tuesday’s midterm elections found that conservatives now want Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) to be the party’s nominee.

“More Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents now say they’d prefer DeSantis (42%) as their 2024 presidential nominee over Trump than say they’d prefer Trump to DeSantis (35%),” the survey found. “That’s a reversal from nearly a month ago, when — according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll of U.S. adults — just 35% preferred DeSantis and 45% said they preferred Trump.”

People who considered themselves to be strong Republicans were split evenly between the two candidates, but Independent-leaning Republicans supported DeSantis by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

There are two major factors that have driven the shift in who Republicans want to be the party’s leader moving forward: The party’s lackluster performance in the midterm elections outside of Florida, and Trump’s attacks on DeSantis, which have been widely scorned by conservatives.

The highlight for the party was how Republicans performed in the state of Florida as the party’s candidates dominated in blowout fashion, exceeding the forecast margins of victory. DeSantis won by 19.5 points, amassing more than 1.5 million more votes than Democrat opponent Charlie Crist. DeSantis’ victory in the state was so dominate that he won 62 of the state’s 67 counties, including 59 by double digits.

Trump repeatedly attacked the Florida governor in the days leading up to the election and has repeatedly launched unprovoked attacks on him in the days since the election.

Trump began his statement, saying, “NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post (bring back Col!), is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations, who didn’t have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just average—middle of the pack—including COVID, and who has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was, just like I did!”

Trump continued by saying that DeSantis was “desperate” in 2017 and that DeSantis “had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win.”

“I also fixed his campaign, which had completely fallen apart,” Trump continued. “I was all in for Ron, and he beat Gillum, but after the Race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt Election process in Broward County, and Ron was going down ten thousand votes a day, along with now-Senator Rick Scott, I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win. I stopped his Election from being stolen…”

“And now, Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games!” Trump concluded in his attack on DeSantis. “The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future.’ Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.”

The backlash to Trump’s remarks from the political Right was swift and far-reaching: