A new poll released on Tuesday shows that Republicans are ready to move on from Trump and find a new candidate who is willing to continued his policies without the extra baggage, and they have a candidate in mind: Ron DeSantis.
The recent USA Today-Suffolk University poll found that 61 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters want a nominee who will continue Trump’s policies but is not Trump, while 31 percent say they want Trump.
According to the poll, Republican voters seem to have decided on Ron DeSantis as the new standard-bearer of the party. The Florida governor has a 23 point lead over Donald Trump, 56% to 33%.
“Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump,” said David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
Trump is the first candidate to announce he is running for president in 2024 last month. Since then he has been embroiled in several major scandals that have hurt him politically.
He had a private dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and controversial rapper Kanye West. West has been under fire for antisemitic comments. Trump claimed he had no idea who Fuentes was, but he still received backlash from some Republicans.
Recently, Trump called for the Constitution to terminated so he could be reinstated as president. He received some condemnation from Republicans for that as well.
On top of that, Trump is being blamed for Republicans’ poor performance in the midterm elections in what was a favorable political environment for the GOP. Many of the candidates he endorsed in key races lost in the general election. Republicans managed to gain a very narrow majority in the House but failed to flip the Senate. They actually lost a seat in the upper chamber.
The poll found Trump’s favorable rating among Republicans dropped from 75 percent in October to 64 percent in December.
“The findings are a red flag for Trump, whose core support has held remarkably solid through firestorms over his personal behavior, his provocative rhetoric, and his most controversial actions in the White House,” USA Today’s Susan Page writes.
