A new survey shows that former President Donald Trump has a slight advantage in Iowa over his Republican opponents for the 2024 GOP nomination, but it is nowhere near as large as his margin across the country.
According to a poll published by the New York Times and Siena College on Friday, 44% of Republican voters in the swing state plan to vote for Trump. Trump, on the other hand, has a 54 percent lead among Republican voters across the country.
Iowa Republican voters gave Florida Governor Ron DeSantis 20% of their vote, which is 3% higher than his national poll ratings. The largest gap was seen by South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who received 9 percent in Iowa but only 6 percent among Republicans nationally.
Trump’s campaign team is trying to increase their presence in Iowa before the caucuses after losing by a margin of 6,000 votes in 2016.
But there have already been ominous indicators for him; a state senator in Iowa who had supported the former president has now embraced DeSantis. Trump also caused consternation by allegedly attacking Iowa’s popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, for not endorsing him for president.
The governor of Florida has likewise up his efforts to win voters there.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur, polled at 5% in Iowa and 2% nationally among Republican voters. Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador, and Mike Pence, a former vice president, both polled at 3 percent among Republicans nationally, with Haley’s support increasing to 5 percent in Iowa and Pence’s support remaining unchanged.
In a hypothetical rematch for the presidency in 2024, Trump and President Joe Biden had identical support levels of 43% among the American public, according to a national poll conducted earlier this year by the New York Times and Siena College.
Prior to the federal prosecution of the former president for allegedly planning to seize a second term after losing the 2020 election, the survey was conducted between July 28 and Tuesday with a sample size of 432 likely voters in Iowa. Trump entered his not guilty plea on Thursday.
The survey has a sample error of +/- 5.9 percentage points and was conducted via both landline and cell phone calls.