Donald Trump Blows Ron DeSantis Out of the Water in 2024 Presidential Polling

Donald Trump is by far and away the favorite to become the next Republican presidential candidate, leading his closest rival Ron DeSantis on average by nearly 40 points in the polls.

According to a collection of national polls since November 2021, compiled by the Polling USA Twitter account, Trump's average polling currently stands at 54 percent, with the Florida governor a distant second on 16 percent.

Mike Pence, the former vice president under Trump, is the third choice of potential GOP presidential candidates for 2024, but is only polling at 7.8 percent on average.

A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, shared with The Hill,found that Trump has the backing of 57 percent of Republican voters to be the next GOP candidate for the 2024 election, with DeSantis and Pence polling at 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

When Trump is taken out of the equation, the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll of 1,815 registered voters named DeSantis as first choice with 30 percent, with Pence just behind on 24 percent, and Texas senator and 2016 challenger Ted Cruz in third place with 14 percent.

Recently, DeSantis has been starting to claw back some ground on Trump after a previous Harvard CAPS/Harris poll conducted between late November and early December found more than two-thirds (67 percent) of potential voters backed the former president as the next candidate.

A YouGov poll conducted between December 14 and 20 showed that while 55 percent of Republicans still chose Trump, DeSantis got the backing of 20 percent of respondents, slimming the margin to 35 percent. A Cygnal poll conducted between January 7 and 9 also placed DeSantis a distant second on 19 percent, but the margin between him and Trump was cut down further to 27 points.

However, the Polling USA average confirms that the Republican presidential candidate's position is Trump's to lose should he officially declare he is running in 2024, something he hinted at almost immediately after leaving the White House last January.

Recently, it was reported that Trump had started to turn on DeSantis, one of his biggest allies in the GOP.

Axios, citing unnamed sources, said Trump was irate that the governor hadn't ruled himself out of running in 2024, allegedly saying he had "no personal charisma and has a dull personality."

Possible Rift

Trump also appeared to make a thinly veiled attack on DeSantis during an interview with the One America News Network earlier in January, when he criticized "gutless" politicians who won't confirm or deny whether they have received a COVID vaccine booster.

However in an January 21 interview with Fox News, Trump denied that is a rift between him and DeSantis, calling the reports "fake news."

Trump added to Sean Hannity: "I have a very good relationship with Ron and I intend to have it for a long time."

In a statement to Newsweek, DeSantis' press secretary Christina Pushaw also denied there was ever a rift between the pair and said the stories were attempts by the media to "distract from President Biden's failures."

"It is not a coincidence that this fabricated media narrative emerged during perhaps the worst week of Biden's presidency, as it became clear last week that Biden would not be able to deliver on Build Back Better, enact sweeping legislation to federalize elections, or 'shut down the virus,' as he had promised repeatedly during the 2020 campaign," Pushaw said.