Polling data from former President Donald Trump’s campaign, conducted by pollster John McLaughlin, shows that Trump holds a commanding lead in the GOP primary and has a lead over President Biden in a likely general election matchup.
McLaughlin is widely regarded as one of the top GOP pollsters in the industry, and the data collected is considered to be some of the most comprehensive since news of the indictment broke on Thursday.
The poll also shows that more voters in both the primary and general election say they will vote for Trump because of the recent indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
A survey of 1,000 general election voters found that Trump is leading Biden with 47% to 43%. The poll has a margin of error of 3.1%.
McLaughlin noted in a memo accompanying the data release that the indictment did not appear to have changed the top lines from a survey conducted earlier in March.
The poll does show the former president has taken a commanding lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in the GOP primary. The poll surveyed a 14-candidate field and found that Trump has majority support at 51%, while DeSantis has experienced a double-digit drop down to 21%. This means the race has swung a net 18 points away from DeSantis towards Trump since McLaughlin’s January polling.
In a memo, McLaughlin wrote, “In a full-field ballot test of 14 potential Republican candidates, President Trump leads with 51%, DeSantis 21%, Mike Pence 6%, Nikki Haley 4%, and everyone else is at 2% or less. In our January survey, President Trump led the field with 43%, and DeSantis was at 31%. Trump’s lead has gone from 12 points to 30 points.”
In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with DeSantis, Trump now has 63 percent support while DeSantis has dropped to 30 percent, a 33 percent gap between the two candidates. This is a significant change from January, when Trump led DeSantis 52 percent to 40 percent, representing a net 22-point swing toward Trump and away from DeSantis since the beginning of the year.
HEY DEMS —IT’S ONLY HELPING! Trump Widens Lead Over DeSantis in First Post-Indictment Poll https://t.co/2kfoFiYq1l
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 3, 2023
The impressive top-line numbers in both the primary and general elections are in line with most other recent polling from major independent pollsters. However, the most striking statistics in the McLaughlin polling come from asking both primary and general election voters about their opinions on Trump’s recent indictment by Bragg.
Of the GOP primary voters polled, 57% said the indictment made them more likely to support Trump, while only 8% said it made them less likely to back him. 31% of those polled said the indictment made no difference to their vote, and 4% were unsure.
