Poll: Ron DeSantis in 2nd place in Iowa, 41 points behind Donald Trump

A new Iowa State University/Civiqs poll presents a good news/bad news scenario for Ron DeSantis.

The good news? The Florida Governor has a firm hold on second place in this survey. His 17%, up 3 points from the last time this poll was in the field, puts him well ahead of former United Nations envoy Nikki Haley, who has 11% support.

Other candidates are even further back, including third place Vivek Ramaswamy, who has just 5% support among the 1,016 registered voters polled from Oct. 6-10.

The bad news? It’s that former President Donald Trump only continues to consolidate support, closing in on 3 out of 5 voters preferring yet another Trump nomination.

“Over half (58%) of these likely caucus-goers picked Trump as their top choice. This is a slight uptick — four percentage points — from the ISU/Civiqs poll results last month,” reads the polling memo.

“It still looks like there’s Trump and everyone else, but that everyone else is clarifying to be DeSantis and Haley, with Ramaswamy and U.S. Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina falling farther behind,” says Professor of Political Science Dave Peterson, who organized the survey.

Peterson notes that people simply aren’t changing allegiances.

“Four years ago, we did this with the Democratic Caucus, and each month, there was a lot of change. We could see voters who had been supporting candidate A shifting to candidate B. This time, there’s very little evidence of that,” Peterson said.

“The people supporting Donald Trump last month are still supporting Donald Trump. There isn’t much movement between candidates. It looks like it’s fairly crystalized in who people are supporting.”

That static view of the race is reflected in the Race to the White House polling average for the state, which finds Trump ahead of DeSantis 48% to 17%.