Former President Donald Trump is leading Republican presidential candidates by a significant margin among support from county GOP leaders.
Trump has 29% of their support, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has 13.7% of support, and other candidates have 10.7% support, while 46.6% remain undecided, per Politico.
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The survey was conducted by Seth Masket, the director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, in June and consisted of 133 respondents. Since the last survey in April, the number of undecided dropped below 50%, while Trump and DeSantis saw gains in support.
Among those candidates county GOP leaders are considering, however, DeSantis leads with 61%, which is down from 67% in April, followed by Trump at 53% and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who has 46%. Scott saw a 19.4% increase since the previous survey in April.
When asked who they do not want to win the nomination, former New Jersey Gov. Christ Christie leads with 57%, followed by former Vice President Mike Pence with 42%. Trump’s numbers saw the biggest jump in this statistic of any of the candidates, with 38% of the county GOP leaders saying they do not want him to win the nomination, compared to 29% in April.
Trump has maintained a commanding lead over the GOP field, even as the number of declared candidates has swelled in recent months. The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Trump leading the field with 53%, followed by DeSantis with 20.9%, and Pence with 6.1%.
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As candidates continue to traverse early primary states, including Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, the first Republican debate is slated for Aug. 23 in Milwaukee.
As candidates work to qualify for the debate, Trump has been unclear on whether he will participate. DeSantis, Trump’s chief rival in the Republican field, has stated he will participate in the debate regardless of whether Trump is there.
