Former President Donald Trump's lead in the 2024 South Carolina Republican primary race has grown while the battle for second place has tightened, according to a new poll.
Trump, with 45% support, leads by a 32-point margin over Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis (13%) in the latest National Public Affairs (NPA) survey.
Former U.N. Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has 11%, the same as South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (7%) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (5%) follow, with no other candidate garnering more than 2% support.
Trump's lead has grown from 15% to 32% since May, with the former president gaining among middle-aged voters, non-college graduates and evangelical men — something that has hurt DeSantis.
"Quite a change in just a few months," NPA's Bill Stepien, former Trump 2020 campaign manager, said on the Yes Labels podcast.
Discussing the survey results on the podcast, Stepien and fellow NPA pollster Justin Clark discussed that the "trendline" for DeSantis is going "down, down, down."
The NPA survey in May showed DeSantis with 23%.
"He's 5 points each month going down … it's not sustainable to be on that kind of trend," Clark said.
The new NPA poll is the latest to show DeSantis has ground to make up in the Palmetto State.
RealClearPolitics, which shows the average of all polling data, says Trump has 43.3% support in South Carolina.
DeSantis is next with 17%, followed by Haley (13.3%) and Scott (9%).
The 2024 South Carolina Republican presidential primary will be held on Feb. 24. It will follow the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, and will be the first primary in the first in the South.
The National Public Affairs survey was conducted among the 846 likely voters between Aug. 7-9.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.