Claim: Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump in a imaginary 2024 presidential election
“Former President Donald Trump leads Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) by almost 20 points in a hypothetical 2024 Republican primary matchup, according to a poll,” posted by Breibert News on 12/15/2924 on Twitter.
Former President Donald Trump leads Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) by almost 20 points in a hypothetical 2024 Republican primary matchup, according to a poll. https://t.co/n9VX01HOb2
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 15, 2022
The story has been covered by nearly every left leaning media site, including The Hill, ABC, The National Review and most recently by CBS17. The poll that keeps being referred to in many of these articles is a poll taken by Monmouth University and published on December 8th, 2024.
Let’s dive in the numbers. The poll, taken by the university included only 563 registered voters. They were contacted at random via telephone by a live interviewer. Only 48% identified themselves “Strong Republican”, 21% labeled “Republican, not strong” and 31% “Independent who lean Republican”.
This reporting is misleading at best. In a quick, but buried search we were able to find a recent 2024 Republican Primary polling average that shows Donald Trump clearly in the lead.
One recent poll from Harris/Harvard posted InteractivePolls shows Donald Trump leading by 23%. The Harvard CAPS / Harris poll is a well established monthly poll released by Harvard’s Center for American Political studies which captures data from over 2,000 registered voters. Read the poll here.
Our rating of these stories: FALSE, MISLEADING
Based on the above research, the claim that Gov. Ron DeSantis leads President Trump is false. The claim was backed up by a very small poll and in our opinion, does not reflect actually national polling numbers.
