New poll shows Ron DeSantis leading Trump in race for GOP nomination and Biden in general election

A new poll shows that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is favored to win the 2024 Republican nomination over Donald Trump by more than 20 points.

But, even more significant, the survey shows that DeSantis would defeat President Joe Biden in a hypothetical matchup.

What does the poll show?

A new USA Today-Suffolk University poll discovered that in a hypothetical matchup between DeSantis and Trump for the GOP nomination, 56% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters would support DeSantis, while only 33% would support Trump.

David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said the poll shows that Republican voters want Trump's agenda without Trump.

"There’s a new Republican sheriff in town," Paleologos said. "Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump."

The poll is yet another signal that Republicans are moving on from Trump. After the disappointing results for Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, an increasing number of Republicans began speaking out against Trump, particularly because his candidates performed considerably worse than moderate Republicans.

Even more significant, the USA Today-Suffolk University poll shows that DeSantis would defeat President Joe Biden. In a hypothetical matchup, the poll found that DeSantis would win a head-to-head matchup for the White House by four points — 47% to 43%.

This figure is especially telling because the same poll found that Biden would defeat Trump in a general election rematch by seven points, 47% to 40%. That suggests that if Republicans want to retake control of the House and experience victory in future elections, they need to look beyond Trump.

Anything else?

Last month, Trump attacked DeSantis and threatened to release allegedly unflattering information about him if he runs for president.

Instead of responding with an attack of his own, DeSantis called Trump's comments "just noise" and promised to focus on delivering results for Floridians, a mission that he attributed to his landslide reelection victory.

"We focused on results and leadership. And, you know, at the end of the day, I would just tell people to go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night,” DeSantis said.

"The fact of the matter is, it was the greatest Republican victory in the history of the state of Florida," he declared.