CBS News poll on how the 2024 GOP presidential primary race is Donald Trump v. Trump fatigue

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To the extent that the Republican primary is a contest right now, it appears to be one between Donald Trump and a feeling one might call “Trump fatigue.”

And Trump easily won that matchup.

Here’s why: MAGA-like ideas are widely held in the Republican electorate, an environment that plays heavily to Trump’s advantage.

There is a huge need for a candidate who says Trump won in 2020, who challenges the ideas of the woke, who doesn’t criticize Trump and, in a good way, angers liberals. Trump leads in all these areas.

Meanwhile, there are some GOPers who say they are “burned out” by Trump, and that he is too controversial, but they are now greatly outnumbered.

Because it’s so early, CBS News first asked voters which candidates they were considering supporting for the Republican nomination, letting them choose as many or as few as they wanted.

Then, we asked them to choose a candidate they would vote for today. (As with many decisions people make, early in the process, they’ll narrow down their options before settling on one.)

Trump leads on both measures.

He not only has a majority of vote support right now, but a huge amount of consideration on top of it, surpassing his current voters in those who say they might still support him. Trump also won the votes of a higher percentage of those who considered him than anyone else.

In short, Trump looks like a former president who left office popular with his party, and little has happened in the intervening years to change that. In fact, regarding his recent legal challenges, many say that one justification for supporting him is showing support in those fights.

And his voters are also likely to say they’re already thinking about ’24.

Trump may also have a support floor: about a quarter of likely voters are only considering him now, and no other names have been tested.

That’s important because if the primary field is completely fractured, as it was in 2016, a smaller percentage can still win.

Tired and “too controversial”?

So, what does the smaller non-Trump group look like?

When we ask people who didn’t vote for Trump why not, aside from simply preferring someone else, most say he’s “too controversial.”

When we ask how Trump feels about them, the top answer is, “exhausted.”

There are roughly a quarter of GOP voters who aren’t even considering Trump at the moment, let alone voting for him.

They exemplify this idea of ​​Trump fatigue. The “exhausted” number grows to six in 10 among those who now rule out even considering Trump — followed by “concerned.”

Importantly, most of these voters don’t dislike him personally. They voted for him in 2020 and most don’t say he can beat Joe Biden in ’24. Most do not feel that there is a mismatch of views, nor do they want to criticize him.

But his perceived resistance could be a turn-off. Most don’t like how he “deals with political opponents,” and prefer to hear about him finding common ground with Democrats if re-elected, rather than investigating and punishing them.

There is also a large educational gap between non-Trump Republican voters and his supporters.

White non-college voters were about 30 points more for Trump than college holders.

DeSantis, Trump, and others

There is some overlap between DeSantis and Trump’s considerations.

Four in 10 likely voters consider them both. But it eroded to Trump’s advantage when it came to vote choice.

An anti-woke stance might help DeSantis for now, but it won’t be enough on its own to catch up to Trump, because Trump has covered that item as well.

Trump won over voters who wanted a candidate to challenge conservative ideas.

Other factors that can shape race

Given the predominance of ideas like denial in the 2020 election, and the positive sentiment toward Trump, are there other constituencies or messages that could change things?

With Trump so dominant at this point, there’s no room for a candidate who criticizes him: only 7% of voters want that if the candidate isn’t Trump himself, and more than a third want loyalty to him.

With a smaller portion of Republicans saying Joe Biden legitimately won in 2020, the race is still between Trump and DeSantis. Mike Pence does slightly better in this group than overall, but still trails the others three to one.

Trump also leads with four in ten voters wanting a candidate to favor Christians over other religious groups.

Half of Republican primary voters want a candidate who favors a national abortion ban. Trump also won these voters. Former Vice President Mike Pence does no better in this constituency than he does in other GOP voters.

What’s next and what to watch from here? Overtaking Trump at this point will obviously require persuading a large portion of voters currently in his camp. One way to look at it is that many of Trump’s supporters are at least considering other candidates, even if none have emerged as another primary choice. For example, four in 10 Trump supporters consider DeSantis.

For those who also consider Trump and others, they’re a group that’s less strong on some of those key measures of loyalty: they’re less likely to prioritize loyalty to the former president than voters alone of Trump, as well as the possibility of citing likeability as a justification and saying that he actually won in ’20.

This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted using a nationally representative sample of 2,372 US resident adults interviewed between April 27-29, 2023 and also included an oversample of self-identified Republicans. The sample was weighted by gender, age, race, and education based on the US Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as past voting. The margin of error is ±5.4 points for likely Republican primary voters.

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