Despite the fact that it’s been just over a month since the 2022 midterms were held — and some races were only resolved in the last two weeks — the 2024 presidential election is right around the corner.
With President Joe Biden signaling that he will run again in 2024, all eyes are currently trained on who his Republican challenger will be — though a new poll suggests that Americans would not be thrilled with a 2020 rematch against former President Donald Trump.
A new CNN poll released Wednesday shows that a majority in both parties would prefer a new nominee in 2024. Sixty-two percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said they would prefer a new nominee other than Trump, while 59% of Democrats and left-leaning nonpartisans would prefer someone other than Biden.
The survey also showed that support for Trump’s third White House bid has fallen among Republican-aligned voters, with just 38% saying they want the 44th president to be the GOP nominee in 2024, down from 50% in January.
Biden’s support, on the other hand, has increased since the summer: The 40% who said they wanted Biden to be the nominee is up from 25% in July, though down from 45% in January.
Of those who want a new GOP nominee in 2024, 47% had a specific candidate in mind; thirty-eight percent picked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a rising star in Republican circles, to take on the role. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats, on the other hand, did not pick a specific nominee.
This isn’t the only recent poll to favor the Florida governor: A Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday saw DeSantis ahead of Trump, 52% to 38%, in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary. Of those polled, 86% had a favorable view of DeSantis, compared to 74% for Trump.
A USA Today/Suffolk University poll released earlier this week found that Republican and GOP-leaning voters prefer DeSantis to Trump, 56% to 33%. The survey also showed that just 31% want Trump to run, compared to 61% prefer a different Republican nominee.
"Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump," David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center, told USA Today.
Trump launched his third White House bid one week after the 2022 midterm elections, which saw Republicans fail to retake the Senate and successfully win back the House, though by a much smaller margin than previously hoped. While Trump’s endorsements dominated the GOP primaries, many of his picks failed to win the general election — including high-profile endorsements like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia.
Some Republicans have blamed Trump for the poor midterm performance, which saw Democrats defy history: Biden was the first president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1934 to see their party not lose any incumbent senators.
In terms of a head-to-head rematch of the 2020 election, the WSJ poll found Biden leading Trump 45-43, within the poll’s margin of error. The USA Today / Suffolk poll saw Biden lead Trump 47-40, up from 46-42 in October.
Trump is the only candidate who has formally declared that he will run for president in 2024.
Biden has not yet announced a 2024 campaign, but has said as recently as last month that his “intention” is to run again. He noted, however, that it would be a “family decision” and will likely make a final determination by “early next year.”
DeSantis has dodged questions about whether or not he will seek higher office, but declined to answer questions during a gubernatorial debate about whether he will serve out a full term. At his victory speech last month, supporters chanted “two more years” at the governor, signaling a desire for him to run for president in 2024.
Florida has a “resign to run” law on the books, which would mandate that DeSantis resign as governor before seeking higher office. However, GOP leaders in the Florida Legislature have signaled openness to reviewing the law.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.