Former President Donald Trump announced in November that he was seeking the Republican nomination for the presidential elections in 2024. Trump served one term from 2017 to early 2021 and would therefore be eligible for another. Florida governor Ron DeSantis formally declared his candidacy on May 24. DeSantis emerged as Trump's biggest rival in the polls but his presidential bid has recently lost steam.
As seen in poll averages calculated by website Realclearpolitics.com, 53.6 percent of Republican voters would pick Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination most recently, while around 14 percent would nominate DeSantis. This is a far cry from the first four months of the year when DeSantis would poll at around 29-31 percent.
While Trump does not exactly have incumbent privilege, it is due to his stint in the White House that he has a large, national supporter base among Republicans. After the party's worse-than-expected performance in the midterms, however, DeSantis started to soar in the polls as a potential presidential candidate due to his resounding reelection success that set him apart from other Republicans, including those with a Trump endorsement. But the longer he has been on the campaign trail, the more DeSantis' momentum has slowed down. Curriculum standards changed in Florida as part of his ultra-conservative agenda overshadowed DeSantis' campaign in August, while in early September, a New Hampshire teen's claims of physical intimidation by his security team after asking questions at a campaign stop proved controversial.
Trump meanwhile seems to have spent major sums of his campaign money on his legal defense, but this doesn't seem to have impacted his polling so far. Trump's Vice President Mike Pence had been the third-most popular candidate among Republican voters for 2024. Recently, he was overtaken by entrepreneur and self-funder Vivek Samaswamy.
