Donald Trump is behind both Ron DeSantis and Liz Cheney in a Deseret News poll of registered voters in Utah that asked respondents about the 2024 presidential primary. Trump is the only one who’s confirmed that he is hoping to nab the party’s presidential nod, but both DeSantis and Cheney have seemingly left the option open.
Only 14.6 percent of the overall Utah respondents shared they’d support Trump in the GOP primary. DeSantis, who was recently re-elected as Florida governor with a whopping margin of 20 percent, finished with 24.2 percent of the support, while Cheney had 16.4 percent. Cheney will soon be exiting Congress after she lost her Republican primary to a Trump-supported candidate, although in her final weeks in Congressional service — for now — she is continuing work on the final segments of the House riot panel’s investigation, which includes a presumably massive final report. About one-fifth of the overall respondents indicated they didn’t know who they’d support. DeSantis was also ahead of Trump among just those explicitly saying they intend to vote in the upcoming GOP presidential primary, which in Utah is closed, meaning only available to those registered with the party. DeSantis hit nearly 29 percent while Trump reached only 18.8 percent — not exactly great numbers for a former president!
DeSantis has consistently polled well against Trump in hypothetical presidential primary match-ups, including at both the national and state levels in Florida, Texas, and other locales, with a burst of surveys after the midterms in which DeSantis saw his resounding re-election victory and candidates aligned with him did well. Republicans even secured super-majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, further shutting out Democrats. He has also enjoyed support from prominent GOP donors like Ken Griffin and could parry that into a significant boost to a presidential bid if they stay onboard. Griffin has given tens of millions for Republican causes and has expressed opposition to the prospect of Trump running again.
In contrast to the DeSantis slate’s success, high-profile candidates closely tied to Trump lost in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan, helping ensure Democrats hold onto control of the Senate for at least two more years and control of key posts of state power ahead of the next presidential election, when officials nationwide will be tasked with certifying the results — and a consistent stream of news stories confirms many Republicans remain interested in upending the certification process when possible. It took a judge’s order for the Cochise County board in Arizona to finally certify this year’s results. The push in Donald’s corner against Arizona’s results is meeting a predictable lack of success.
