Donald Trump is the firm favorite to win Monday’s Republican caucus in Iowa, kicking off his bid for the GOP presidential nomination, according to a new poll.
The survey, conducted for NBC News, Mediacom and Iowa newspaper The Des Moines Register, found Trump well ahead as the preferred candidate of 48 percent of likely Republican caucus voters in the state.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was in second place with 20 percent, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on 16 percent and business tycoon Vivek Ramaswamy on 8 percent.
National polling indicates Trump has a strong lead in his bid for the 2024 GOP nomination, with an analysis of recent polls by website FiveThirtyEight released on January 13 finding he was the preferred candidate of 60.4 percent of likely Republican primary voters. This put him well ahead of DeSantis on 12.1 percent and Haley with 11.7 percent.
No major Democratic Party figure has challenged President Joe Biden for its 2024 nomination, potentially setting up a rematch of the bitter 2020 contest, despite a recent Economist/YouGov poll which found a majority of Americans don’t want either man to run again.
The NBC News, Mediacom and Des Moines Register poll surveyed 705 likely Iowa Republican caucus goers between January 7 and 12. Its findings broadly matched an analysis of multiple recent Iowa-specific Republican polls by FiveThirtyEight, released on January 13, which put Trump in the lead on 51.3 percent, followed by Haley on 17.3 percent and DeSantis on 16.1 percent.
However, in a blow to Haley, the latest survey found her supporters in Iowa are much less enthusiastic than Trump’s, with 49 percent describing themselves as only “mildly enthusiastic” and another 12 percent “not that enthusiastic.”
Spencer Platt and Win McNamee/GETTY
Speaking to The Des Moines Register about Haley’s figures, pollster J. Ann Selzer, who helped conduct the survey, commented: “Her enthusiasm numbers, again, I just think are on the edge of jaw-dropping.
“That 61 percent are just mildly enthusiastic or not that enthusiastic—it just seems at odds with a candidate moving up.”
Newsweek has reached out to representatives of Trump and Haley for comment.
The New Hampshire Republican primary is scheduled to take place on January 23, with one recent poll indicating a much closer race than in Iowa, with Trump only four points ahead of second-placed Haley.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a fierce Trump opponent, dropped out of the Republican race earlier this week, saying he was “going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again.” Christie declined to endorse any other candidate, but the move is widely expected to benefit Haley.
On Saturday, Trump used his Truth Social website to hit out at Ramaswamy, who he has previously largely refrained from attacking, branding the businessman “very sly” and accusing him of using “deceitful campaign tricks.”
Ramaswamy described the attack as “friendly fire” and “an unfortunate move by his [Trump’s] campaign advisors” in a post on X, formerly Twitter, in response.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.