Poll: DeSantis closes gap with Trump in Iowa by 14 percent

Internal polling from backers of Ron DeSantis show the Florida governor gaining ground against primary competitor Donald Trump in the first-in-the-nation primary contest state of Iowa. From pre-presidential announcement to post, a new Never Back Down PAC survey shared with Axios has DeSantis closing the gap between frontrunner Trump by 14 percent. In mid-May, before DeSantis officially announced his presidential candidacy in a Twitter Spaces event with Elon Musk, he earned 24 percent in Iowa polling compared to Trump’s 48 percent – a 24 percent gap.

Just a few weeks later, after he launched his campaign on May 24, the Florida governor earned 29 percent among likely Iowa caucus-goers against Trump’s 39 percent. Now the governor is in second place with only 10 percent between him and the former president, while the rest of the field falls further behind the two frontrunners. But when the other candidates were taken out of the equation and DeSantis and Trump were put in a head-to-head matchup,, NBC PAC found the two frontrunners effectively tied in Iowa – compared to the governor’s 14-point deficit in mid-May.

Zooming out to the national level, polling shows DeSantis usually at least 20 points behind Trump and the rest of the field failing to reach into the double-digits. A new CNN survey conducted the day of DeSantis’ announcement showed Trump up 56 percent to 26 percent.

The new NBD polling comes on the back of DeSantis’ first official campaign swing through early primary contest states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He will continue on to Nevada later in June. Trump also went to Iowa last week, overlapping with DeSantis swing. Despite the optimistic showing from the main PAC backing DeSantis’ GOP primary bid, other polling shows that he has not earned the expected post-announcement boost.

A Morning Consult poll taken after DeSantis entered the race shows his standing only increasing by 1 percent – and still trailing Trump by 38 percent. DeSantis started the year showing some early leads over Trump, but some pollsters claim his reluctance to announce his candidacy, and keeping one-foot in the race and one-foot out, hurt him among voters.

There are already 11 candidates in the GOP primary race. Among those actually earning some polling ground are former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and current South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Other more long-shot candidates in the running are biotech millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Former Vice President Mike Pence filed appropriate paperwork on Monday to launch a bid for the White House – and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on the same day revealed that he will not be entering the race. Others expected to wade into the 2024 waters in coming weeks are former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Read the full story:

Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Visit our profile page here and hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.