CBS has produced another poll [DATA HERE] just ahead of the first-loser GOPe debate in Wisconsin. President Trump, with 62% support, holds a whopping 46-point lead in the 2024 GOP primary election, as Ron DeSantis continues to collapse in national and early state polls.
For the billionaire Wall Street donors, multinationals and corporate funders of the DeSantis campaign, the scale of epic fail is off the charts. Never before have so few given so much for so little. It pains Margaret Brennan to pretend so much. WATCH:
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the 2024 campaign and our new CBS News poll shows former President Trump with his biggest lead yet this cycle with support of 62 percent of Republican primary voters surveyed. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has dropped since our last survey. He’s now at 16 percent. And the rest of the field remains in single digits as most of them prepare for the primary debate coming up later this week.
Our elections and surveys director Anthony Salvanto is here with us.
Anthony, it’s great to see you in person.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Good to see you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, does it matter to these primary voters if Donald Trump is on that stage or not?
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Well, he’s not in a competitive race right now. Right now they would nominate him and it would be not close. It would be an easy win for him.
Look, you know, there’s a couple of dynamics here going on for those who do debate that I think even underpin him more, and that is, when we ask voters, what do you want to hear in this debate, you get this lopsided number that wants the other candidates, make the case for yourselves, but don’t criticize Donald Trump. It was poultry, 9 percent, that wants to hear critiques. And that puts the other candidates in a box.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It dynamic with Donald Trump is always different, isn’t it?
So, have the indictments that he has had to date impacted him in any way?
ANTHONY SALVANTO: He’s held steady. His lead, as you said at the top, is even bigger as the rest of the field has fallen back.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So it sounds like no.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: It — the answer is no, but it’s – it’s also underpinning him in some way in this regard.
He is, when we ask, why are you supporting Donald Trump? Well, among other reasons, his voters say, it’s to support him during his legal fights, to show that – that support.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s helping him.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: So, in that regard, it does help him, or at least it – it girds that support from his – his substantial base.
Well, the other part of this, though, if we unpack it is, why. And you see a couple things. One is that they reject the premise of these indictments because, a, they say they’re politically motivated, and that swamps any other concerns, number one. We’ve seen that throughout all the indictments. Number two, they say that, well, if Donald Trump tried to stay in office, they feel it was through legal and constitutional means. That’s different from other Americans who think it was illegal. But for Republicans, the reason they feel that way, is that so many of them still buy what Trump was talking about in terms of a fraudulent election, those unfounded, unproven claims. But Republicans believe that. So, that’s how that narrative then forms that – that buttress against what’s coming at him in the indictments.
Finally, though, I’ve got to add this for a larger context, and that is, Republicans, to a larger degree, see the U.S. political system, they tell us, as corrupt. Now, a lot of people think it’s dysfunctional, but Republicans in particular think it’s – think it’s corrupt.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Well, what that does is, it sets up Trump for them as the honest broker for them against that system. In fact, he’s winning among people who want an honest candidate. They see him as the truth teller.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a fascinating dynamic. So, for everyone else who has to show up at that debate stage, how do they differentiate themselves?
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Well, I think there’s one possible opening between the – the — what people say they’re hearing and what they want to hear. And it’s this. Republican voters tell us they’re hearing a lot about Donald Trump. Now, he’s the frontrunner, but they don’t all want to hear that in part because of all the indictment news.
But what they want to hear about is the economy. Specifically, about plans to help lower inflation, to help the economy. And in that way, they’re just like all American voters it at this point, right? They care about, how does the price of eggs come down? How do they get to – to buy a house if they’re trying to?
MARGARET BRENNAN: They want more policy. That’s interesting.
Anthony, this is fascinating.
And you can find the full poll results on our website at cbsnews.com.
We’ll be back in a moment.
