Most Republicans think Trump is probably their strongest nominee against Biden

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May 30, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

By Ben Kamisar

A majority of Republican voters think former President Donald Trump gives their party its toughest challenge to President Joe Biden, according to a new Monmouth University poll that shows Trump continues to consolidate support for the nomination in the presidency of his party.

When GOP voters were asked who their strongest presidential nominee would be to run against Biden, 45% said Trump was “definite” and another 18% said Trump was “likely,” while 19% said “probably” another candidate and 13% said “definitely “another candidate. And that sentiment wasn’t shared only by those who said they wanted Trump to be the party’s presidential nominee, as 39% of Republican voters who said they wanted to see another candidate as the nominee still said Trump is “definitely ” or “perhaps. ” their party’s strongest candidate to defeat Biden.

If your main argument with Republican voters is that Trump is not the party’s strongest nominee, you have a challenge ahead of you, Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement alongside the release of new numbers.

“If your message to voters who support Trump is that he’s not going to win, you’re going to hit a brick wall. Even if you feed into the group that thinks he’s probably the strongest candidate, you still might not get the enough Republican voters to overcome Trumps hardcore base support.

Trump secures 43% support from Republican voters in an open-ended ballot test for the GOP nomination (where respondents are not limited to a list of candidates and instead can volunteer if which candidate they support). That’s virtually unchanged from Trump’s 41% in the Monmouth poll in March, but up from 33% in February.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is the only other candidate in double digits, with 19% support (down from 27% in March and 33% in February). Former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. are both at 3%. Tim Scott, followed by former Ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul all tied at 1% (the latter two have not indicated any intention to run for president). Five percent chose another candidate and 23% say they don’t know yet who they want to support.

And Trump continues to put together a hypothetical one-on-one race against DeSantis. While a Monmouth poll from March found them nearly tied, Trump leads DeSantis here 56% to 35%.

Trump still holds very high favorability ratings within the party — 77% of Republican voters view him favorably, compared to 17% who view him unfavorably — but his image rating that is more than matched by DeSantis, who has a favorable rating of 73% and an unfavorable rating of just 12%.

Monmouth University polled 655 registered voters “who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party” in a mix of cell phone, landline phone and text-to-web from May 18-24. The margin of error is +/- 5.5%.

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