Surprise Candidate on Track to Overtake DeSantis After Reaching Double Digits in GOP Polls
A Republican presidential primary long regarded as a two-way race might have found a dark-horse candidate.
Echelon Insights, a polling service based in Alexandria, Virginia, released a poll on Monday showing big gains for businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
In a poll of 413 likely voters conducted between June 26 and 29, Ramaswamy earned 10 percent support, trailing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by only 6 percentage points.
Former President Donald Trump earned 49 percent support in the same poll.
Political Polls on Twitter posted the results of the poll for the entire Republican field.
2024 National Republican Primary:
Trump 49% (+33)
DeSantis 16%
Ramaswamy 10%
Pence 5%
Haley 5%
T. Scott 4%
Christie 2%
Suarez 1%
Burgum 1%
Youngkin 0%
Hutchinson 0%
Perry 0%
Hurd 0%
Elder 0%
.
Head-2-Head:
Trump 60% (+28)
DeSantis 32%.@EchelonInsights, 413 LV, 6/26-29…
— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) July 4, 2023
The Real Clear Politics average of polls for the 2024 Republican Presidential Nomination, conducted June 5-26, shows Ramaswamy in sixth place at 2.4 percent.
Echelon’s new poll, therefore, represents a dramatic surge for Ramaswamy and a surprising challenge to DeSantis.
Another interesting aspect of the new poll involves a hypothetical head-to-head match-up between Trump and DeSantis.
In that event, Trump would command 60 percent support to DeSantis’s 32 percent.
One cannot prove from these numbers alone that Ramaswamy supporters shifted to Trump in the former president’s match-up with DeSantis.
On the other hand, one cannot help noticing that Trump’s 49 percent plus Ramaswamy’s 10 percent in the original poll would account for nearly all of Trump’s 60 percent support in the two-way race with DeSantis.
In this context, it is worth noting that among Republican presidential candidates, Ramaswamy alone has rallied to Trump’s support and pledged to issue a pardon if the former president is convicted on federal charges.
Under “Policy Vision” on Ramaswamy’s campaign website, the headline reads: “America First 2.0.”
On the same page, the following line appears below a video of Ramaswamy: “Vivek’s 25 Policy Commitments to Take America First further than Trump.”
To put it mildly, Ramaswamy appears to have no RINO DNA.
The new Echelon poll, coupled with Ramaswamy’s America First 2.0, suggests that a growing minority of GOP voters wants even more Trump than Trump himself can deliver.
When Ramaswamy no longer appears as an option, those voters settle for the original America First candidate.
The takeaway here could not be more fascinating.
Republican voters have gone full-on populist — nearly two-thirds of them, at least.
They have grown tired of regime-change wars and stale paeans to free trade or balanced budgets.
They have aligned themselves against a corrupt ruling class that serves only its donors’ interests.
It might only be one poll, but Ramaswamy’s surge stands as one more piece of evidence that the Old Bush-Cheney-McCain-Romney-Ryan Republican Party has no future.
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