Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the early favorite to win the Republican Party presidential nomination among Utah voters, a new poll finds.
A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll of 801 registered voters suggests that if the presidential primary were held now, 21% would vote for DeSantis and 16% would support former President Donald Trump. The only other candidate in double digits was former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, with 12%.
DeSantis’ popularity is even higher among Republican voters, 31% of whom said they’d support him. Twenty-three percent of Republicans say they’d support Trump.
The poll was conducted March 14-22 by Dan Jones and Associates and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percentage points. News that Trump would likely face criminal charges from the Manhattan district attorney’s office broke the week prior to polling, though his arraignment hearing did not occur until early April, after polling had concluded.
“The findings show that Utah Republicans continue to be more wary of Donald Trump than Republicans in other red states,” said Chris Karpowitz, professor of political science at Brigham Young University.
Behind DeSantis, Trump and Cheney, other vote-getters included former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (5%), former Vice President Mike Pence (4%) and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex. (2%). 21% of voters say they’d vote for another candidate, and 20% are undecided.
Among self-described “very conservative” voters, Trump has a 42 to 31 percentage-point lead, though DeSantis enjoys large leads among those who are “somewhat” conservative and moderates.
“Utah Republicans did not support (Trump) in the Republican primary in 2016, and at least from the results of this poll, they are not rallying around him so far. In some ways, such low level of support for a former president is remarkable,” Karpowitz said.
National polls show DeSantis and Trump as the clear front-runners in the race for the Republican nomination, though many are conflicting as to who has an early lead. A Monmouth University poll in late March showed Trump with a one percentage-point lead, after a February poll showed him with a 13 percentage-point deficit. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted on March 30-31, however, shows Trump with a 26 percentage-point lead. And a Fox News poll, also conducted in late March, showed Trump with a 30 percentage-point lead, up from a 15 percentage-point advantage in late February.
Ever since Trump announced his candidacy last November, several polls of Utah voters have shown DeSantis ahead. A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted shortly after Trump’s announcement showed DeSantis with a seven percentage-point lead. Last month, a Deseret News survey of Utah GOP county chairs found that more would consider supporting DeSantis than Trump in the presidential primary. “Ron DeSantis has all the same policy beliefs that Trump has,” one chair said. “He just doesn’t have the arrogance and the mouth that Donald Trump does, which is revolting.”
“I loved a lot of things Trump did, but shoot, our country’s gonna end up in flames if he’s reelected,” another said.
DeSantis has yet to formally announce his candidacy. He cruised to reelection last November, defeating former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points.
The Utah 2024 GOP presidential primary will be held March 5, 2024.