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By James Bickerton
News Reporter
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Donald Trump has a commanding lead over Ron DeSantis among Republican primary voters, polling indicates, ahead of the Florida governor's expected formal announcement of a presidential run on Wednesday evening.
According to media reports, initially by NBC News, DeSantis will launch his campaign at 6 p.m. ET during a Twitter Space conversation with Elon Musk.
To win the GOP nomination, DeSantis will have to dethrone frontrunner Trump, who is bogged down in a number of tricky legal battles. Surveys give Joe Biden a commanding lead among Democratic primary voters, meaning the Republican winner is likely to face the incumbent president in November 2024.
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The most recent Morning Consult poll of 3,526 "potential Republican voters" gave Trump a lead of 38 percent over the Florida governor.
Conducted between May 18 and 20, it found the former president is the favored choice of 58 percent of Republican voters, versus 20 percent for DeSantis. Former vice president Mike Pence is third on 6 percent, with no other candidate attracting more than 5 percent support.
A HarrisX poll conducted on behalf of Harvard University's Center for American Political Studies also found Trump had a significant lead. According to the survey, Trump is the favored presidential candidate of 58 percent of Republican voters, versus 16 percent for DeSantis.
However, if Trump were to withdraw from the race, DeSantis would be the firm favorite, on 41 percent, versus 14 percent for Mike Pence. The data was drawn from a survey conducted on May 17-18 of 2,004 registered voters.
Separately, a poll of 1,500 U.S. voters conducted exclusively for Newsweek on May 17 found Trump had the support of 77 percent of likely Republican primary voters. This put the New York business tycoon 69 points ahead of DeSantis, who languished in second place on 8 percent. The survey, by Redfield & Wilson Strategies, put former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy jointly in third, with 2 percent support each.
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Newsweek has contacted DeSantis and Trump for comment via email and the official online press contact form, respectively.
After media reports broke about DeSantis' upcoming announcement on Tuesday, Trump shared a number of articles attacking the Florida Republican on his Truth Social website. These include a piece published by conservative website The Gateway Pundit, which called Trump a "gift from God" and urged DeSantis to "stand down for the good of the GOP."
On Tuesday, Justice Juan Merchan announced that Trump's trial on 34 charges related to the alleged payment of hush money to ex-pornographic actress Stormy Daniels will start on March 25, 2024.
This sparked a furious response from Trump, who claimed it amounts to "ELECTION INTERFERENCE" as the date falls in the middle of the Republican primaries season.
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