Former President Donald Trump leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a hypothetical two-man race for the GOP nomination, after having trailed the governor in a similar poll one month ago.
Mr. Trump bests Mr. DeSantis by 8 percentage points in the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, which finds 47% of registered Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would vote for Mr. Trump in their state’s primary compared to 39% who picked Mr. DeSantis.
Mr. Trump had trailed the governor by 4 points in a poll taken in early February.
The former president announced his presidential bid last fall, a remarkably early jump into the 2024 cycle.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have formally joined the race, while Mr. DeSantis is widely expected to make a bid after the close of Florida’s legislative session.
Mr. DeSantis is playing coy for now and will not attend the Conservative Political Action Conference this week in the Washington, D.C., area.
The new survey found Mr. Trump leads by double digits in a look at the broader GOP field, with 45% of likely Republican voters saying they prefer him. Mr. DeSantis takes second place, with 29%, and Ms. Haley gets 4%.
The results are similar to a Fox News survey this week that found Mr. Trump had a 15-point lead on Mr. DeSantis in a look at the potential 2024 GOP field.
The Yahoo News/YouGov survey was conducted among over 1,500 adults from Feb. 23 to Feb. 27 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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