Donald Trump took away more than 99% of the votes in the Nevada Republican caucus held Thursday, while his lone credible opponent Nikki Haley fared poorly in the primary elections held in the state on Tuesday. Despite her weak standing against Trump, Haley has the best chance of beating President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election, a new poll has found.
Dead Heat: Trump and Biden split the voters equally when they were asked to choose between the two for the presidency, according to Marquette Law School Poll, Wisconsin survey, done on Jan. 24-31. About 930 Wisconsin registered voters were surveyed for the purpose.
Forty-nine percent of respondents picked Biden as their preferred candidate and an equal proportion favored Trump as well, while 2% said they were undecided. Independent candidates leaned more towards Biden as the incumbent led his predecessor by a 49%-42% margin in this category.
Trump held a percentage point lead over Biden when responses of “likely voters” were taken into account.
A December survey in the state showed that Biden led Trump by a 50-48% margin, both among registered voters and likely voters.
Another interesting takeaway was only 80% of registered voters said Biden would be/probably be the nominee of the Democratic Party compared to 85% who said Trump would be/probably be the Republican party’s nominee.
This imparts some credibility to rumors of other candidates thrown into the race, including former first lady Michelle Obama.
5-Way Race Beefs Up Trump: When independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein were included on the ballots, Trump trumped Biden by a 40%-37% margin. Kennedy took away 16% support, while Stein and West received 5% and 2% of the support, respectively. The poll among the likely voters return results in line with that of the findings from registered voters.
Haley – Biden Thrasher? When Trump was replaced by Haley as the potential Republican nominee for the general election, 57% of the registered voters chose her over Biden, while Biden was 16 points behind with 41% support. In December, Haley beat Biden by a 53%-44% margin.
Among, the likely voters, the margin was still in favor of Haley in the recent survey, at 57% to 42%.
Haley’s strength is due to her clout with independent voters, as 58% of them favored her compared to the 36% support Trump received. More importantly, Haley took away more support from Biden among the Democrats than Trump did. Fifteen percent of the Democrats sided with her when she was pitched against Biden, with the latter getting only 85% of support from his party base.
But this matchup looks improbable unless Trump is forced to drop out due to indictments in any of the plethora of legal cases he is facing.
A majority of registered Republican voters chose Trump over Haley in the primary race, with 64% backing the former and 22% the latter. Even if the 14% who said they were undecided were added to Haley’s tally, she would still fall short.
In the November poll, Trump was the choice of 38% and Haley the choice of 11%, with 24% undecided and other candidates taking the remainder. Since then businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have all dropped out of the race.
Wisconsin is a key swing state in the current presidential cycle, and results from swing states are too close to call and can go either way.
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