Former President Donald Trump’s post-indictment boost in the polls seems to be eroding, as demonstrated in the latest Yahoo News/YouGov survey.
Trump experienced a boost in polls following his indictment at the hands of a New York grand jury and woke District Attorney Alvin Bragg, even taking the lead over President Biden, according to a survey from The Economist/YouGov. Last week’s Morning Consult survey found Trump with the widest lead over his closest potential challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), as the former president jumped 33 points ahead post-indictment.
Poll after poll found the public expressing that the indictment would only help — not hurt — Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
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RSBN / Rumble
However, it appears the immediate post-indictment boost is now waning.
The latest Yahoo News/YouGov survey found Trump’s 26-point lead over DeSantis in a head-t0-head matchup reducing ten points to 16 percent. In other words, two weeks ago, Trump led DeSantis 57 percent to 31 percent among Republicans and Republican-leaners. Trump now leads DeSantis 52 percent to 36 percent.
The survey also found Trump falling under 50 percent support in the potentially crowded GOP field.
According to Yahoo:
For the first time since February, fewer than half of Republican voters now say they would prefer Trump (49%, down 5 points) to “someone else” as the party’s nominee. Instead, most say they would prefer someone else (39%) or that they’re not sure (12%).
It’s possible that Trump’s initial post-indictment bump was inflated by fans who were so eager to express their outrage that they were (temporarily) more responsive to pollsters. The new Yahoo News/YouGov survey may represent a return to more normal response patterns.
However, the survey also emphasized that Trump is “still polling better today than he was earlier this year.”
Further, the survey concluded that Trump can not depend on the post-indictment boost in order to secure the Republican nomination, as public opinion appears to be turning on this issue.
For example, the survey found overall approval of the indictment increasing by five percent over the last two weeks.
“Public opinion, in other words, is trending against the former president — and that’s true even among Republicans. Today, 19% of them approve of Trump’s indictment; two weeks ago, that number was 12%,” Yahoo reported.
The Yahoo survey was taken April 14-17, 2023, among 1,530 U.S. adults.
This seeming trend could be seen in Tuesday’s Morning Consult survey as well, which found Trump’s 33-point lead over DeSantis dropping back down to 29 percent.
2024 National Republican Primary:
Trump 53% (+29)
DeSantis 24%
Pence 7%
Haley 4%
Ramaswamy 3%
Cheney 2%
T. Scott 2%
Abbott 1%
Noem 1%
Youngkin 0%
Hutchinson 0%.@MorningConsult, 3,499 RV, 4/14-16https://t.co/8E7nq4VZzW
— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) April 18, 2023
