A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Trump leading the presidential race

Jason Lang – Reuters Donald Trump (R) is leading Ron DeSantis (R) by nearly 40 percentage points in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, even after refusing to debate Florida’s governor and other challengers, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. On Friday (25).

The poll showed that half of the Republican respondents who watched the party’s first debate on Wednesday were more open to DeSantis’ candidacy, good news for an event-driven campaign that has bolstered after polls dipped in the summer.

But it showed DeSantis still stuck in a distant second, with 13% support from Republican respondents, while Trump, the former president, had 52%, up slightly from the 47% he received in a Reuters/Ipsos poll. earlier in August.

The two-day poll collected online responses from 1,004 American adults, including 347 Republicans across the country, and the credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, was about 6 percentage points both ways for Republicans.

DeSantis and seven other Republican candidates took part in the debate in Milwaukee, while Trump’s pre-recorded interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson posted simultaneously to X, formerly known as Twitter, was meant to distract viewers.

Trump said before the debate that he did not see any political benefit in participating, given his huge lead in opinion polls despite indictments against him in four separate criminal cases. The results of the Reuters/Ipsos poll seem to confirm this.

While DeSantis was the focus of the debate, he was overshadowed for much of the raucous two-hour event by tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who clashed with former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and other candidates.

However, about half of Republican respondents said they were more likely to support DeSantis based on what they had heard about the debate. And about four in 10 Republicans said they were likely to support Ramaswamy or Healy based on the debate.

However, not many were enthusiastic enough about Ramaswamy and Healy to say they now support their proposals. Only 5% of Republicans said they openly support Ramaswamy, while only 4% endorsed Haley, similar to before the debate.

Former Vice President Mike Pence had the support of 6% of Republicans, but only one in five Republicans who watched the debate said they were now more open to supporting him.

About 59% of Republicans surveyed followed the debate, with 19% saying they watched it live, and the rest saying they watched some clips or watched news coverage on the issue. And 41% said they had not seen or heard anything about this.

In a hypothetical confrontation between President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, the largest group of participants, including Democrats and independents, was asked who they would choose “if the presidential elections were held today.”

Trump gets 38%, compared to 32% for Biden. The rest said they were not sure, and would not vote or choose someone else.

On Thursday, a photo of Trump was released after he was held in an Atlanta jail on more than a dozen felony charges as part of a broader criminal trial stemming from his attempts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election in Georgia.

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