Poll shows Donald Trump in dominating position before the first GOP debate

Ahead of the first Republican presidential primary debate, a national poll shows Donald Trump dominating Ron DeSantis by a growing margin.

Victory Insights found Trump leading the GOP field with almost 61% of likely GOP Primary voters favoring the former President. The Florida Governor remains in a distant second place, with 12% support.

Every other candidate in the field remains in single digits. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Vice President Mike Pence poll just under 4%. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley comes in under 2% while South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and businessman Perry Johnson show with 1%. The poll has a 3.5% margin of error.

“This is Donald Trump’s race to lose,” reads a polling memo from Victory Insights. “With three in five GOP voters already saying they’re backing Trump, and his most serious challenger barely holding on to double-digit support, the former president is in an excellent position. Assuming Trump doesn’t participate in the first RNC-sanctioned debate next week, the candidates on stage won’t really be fighting for the nomination — they’ll be fighting for second place.”

In a head-to-head match-up between Trump and DeSantis, the ex-President maintains a lead of more than 40 percentage points, with nearly 65% support compared to DeSantis’ more than 23%. More than 12% of voters would remain on the fence given the choice of only those two candidates.

But DeSantis fares better than others in a head-to-head with the frontrunner. Trump leads Ramaswamy 71% to 15%.

One big change in this poll and prior Victory Insights surveys is that Trump and DeSantis now share similar negatives, with about 19% of voters having an unfavorable view of either candidate. Meanwhile, Trump, even after being indicted four times, now holds a favorable rating in the eyes of 68% of respondents. DeSantis has that type of support with 51% of likely GOP voters, the only other candidate to register positively with more than half of those surveyed.

By comparison, both Christie and Pence draw more scorn than support. About 59% of respondents have a negative view of Christie and 54% see Pence in a poor light. Both have criticized Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot while campaigning. Only 11% of those surveyed see Christie in a positive light, while 21% think well of Pence.

As for Ramaswamy, 40% think well of him, according to the survey, while only 14% think poorly of him.