No DeSantis debate bounce, but some Republicans more open to him
-Reuters/Ipsos
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[August 26, 2023]
By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump leads Ron DeSantis by nearly 40
percentage points in the race for the Republican presidential nomination
even after declining to debate the Florida governor and other rivals,
according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Friday.
The survey found that half of Republican respondents who followed the
party's first debate on Wednesday were more open to DeSantis' bid - good
news for a campaign banking on the event boosting his profile after a
summer slide in opinion polls.
But it showed DeSantis remained stuck in distant second place with 13%
of support of Republican respondents while Trump, the former president,
had 52%, marginally higher than the 47% he received in a Reuters/Ipsos
poll in early August.
The two-day poll gathered online responses from 1,004 U.S. adults,
including 347 Republicans across the country, and had a credibility
interval, a measure of precision, of about 6 percentage points in either
direction for Republicans.
DeSantis and seven other Republican hopefuls took part in the Milwaukee
debate while a pre-recorded Trump interview with conservative
commentator Tucker Carlson posted simultaneously on X, formerly known as
Twitter, aimed to siphon away viewers.
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Trump said before the debate he saw no political benefit to taking part
given his enormous lead in opinion polls, despite his indictments in
four separate criminal cases. The results of the Reuters/Ipsos poll
appear to have borne that out.
While DeSantis stood center stage in the debate, he was overshadowed for
much of the raucous two-hour event by tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy,
who clashed with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and other
candidates.
Still, about half of Republican respondents said they were more likely
to support DeSantis based on what they had heard about the debate. About
four in 10 Republicans said they were more likely to back Ramaswamy or
Haley based on the debate.
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![](../images/082623PIX/news_n2.jpg)
Republican presidential candidate and
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the first Republican
candidates' debate of the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. August 23, 2023. REUTERS/Brian
Snyder/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Aug/26/images/ads/current/graue_lda_ENCLAVE3169preowned_081423.jpg)
Many had not warmed to Ramaswamy and Haley enough, however, to say
they were now backing their bids. Only 5% of Republicans said they
outright backed Ramaswamy while only 4% supported Haley, similar
shares to what they had before the debate.
Former Vice President Mike Pence had 6% support from Republicans,
but only one in five Republicans who followed the debate said they
were now more open to supporting him.
Some 59% of the Republicans polled had followed the debate, with 19%
saying they watched it live and the rest saying they had watched
some clips or saw news coverage about it. Forty-one percent said
they hadn't seen or heard anything about it.
In a hypothetical match-up between President Joe Biden, a Democrat,
and Trump, the larger pool of respondents, including Democrats and
independents, were asked who they would pick "if the election for
president were held today."
Trump had 38% to Biden's 32%. The rest said they weren't sure,
wouldn't vote or would pick someone else.
On Thursday, Trump's mug shot was released after he was booked at an
Atlanta jail on more than a dozen felony charges as part of a
wide-ranging criminal case stemming from his attempts to overturn
his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)
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