Poll finds that Kansas GOP voters seem to favor Trump, may favor DeSantis more

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - A recent poll has found that while Kansans who plan to vote in the 2024 Republican Primary Election may seem to favor Donald Trump, he would lose to Ron DeSantis in a head-to-head match-up.

“I think there are two reasons that Trump is leading in this poll right now. The first is simply name recognition, it’s very early now in the season so people are going to respond favorably to the names that they recognize. I would expect to see the other smaller candidates, lesser-known candidates rise, they’ve got a much higher ceiling. The other thing to note is Trump still has his strong base of support, it’s not as broad as republican strategist would like but he still has true believers, and they’re going to stay behind him for a very long time,” says Associate Professor of Political Science at Kansas State University, Nate Birkhead.

National GOP polling firm Remington Research Group announced on Thursday, Feb. 23, that it has started to conduct public polling for the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary Election - and the first state polled was Kansas. It will continue to conduct polling through the spring and summer of both announced and unannounced candidates focusing on states with little to no publicly available polling.

The most recent polling data from Remington indicates that the Sunflower State shows Donald Trump leads in a multi-candidate environment, however, he trails in a head-to-head matchup with Ron DeSantis and leads in a head-to-head matchup with Kansas native Mike Pompeo.

In the Topeka area, the poll found that 56% of voters viewed DeSantis favorably while 53% favored Trump and 47% favored Pompeo. In the Kansas City region, 52% favored DeSantis, 45% favored Trump and 43% favored Pompeo. Around 60% of Wichitans favored DeSantis, 60% favored Pompeo and 56% favored Trump.

“The DeSantis/Trump dynamic is going to be very interesting to watch. DeSantis initially positioned himself as a Trump supporter but then he has recently tried to divorce himself from Trump the person but maintains a lot of Trump policies. He deported immigrants, he sent immigrants to Martha’s vineyard and so a lot of the same anti-immigrant rhetoric that Trump did that was kind of his campaign appeal, DeSantis does to he just presents himself in a slightly different way,” says Birkhead.

The poll also found that the favorability of Trump dropped with higher education levels. Around 64% of those with a high school education favored Trump, with some college education favorability dropped to 59%, it dropped to 51% with those that hold a Bachelor’s degree and to 35% with those with a post-graduate education.

For DeSantis, the poll found that 51% of voters with a high school education favored him, that number rose to 59% with some college education and rose to 61% for those with a Bachelor’s degree. However, the number dropped to 53% favorability among those with a post-graduate education.

“I think it’s useful to take a poll like this as a snapshot of where the election is today, so the candidates like Pompeo, like Haley, like Scott even like DeSantis have not come to Kansas to make a case for themselves here so there are a lot of people who you can persuade. So what I think is going to happen is that Trump will lead these early polls but then his support will wane as we get through Iowa and into the remaining parts of the nomination race,” says Birkhead.

For more information or to see the full poll results, click HERE.

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