Poll: Majority of Republicans, independents believe Trump will run in 2024
December 9, 2020
A large majority of Republicans and independents have faith President Donald Trump will follow through on his musings about running for president again in 2024, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday.
Among Republicans, 76 percent believed a 2024 run to be likely, along with 60 percent of independents. Democrats were less certain, with only 47 percent believing a run to be likely. Trump has flirted with running again in four years as his unfounded claims of a stolen victory this year increasingly fall apart in court. Still, a majority of Republicans in Congress refuse to recognize President-elect Joe Biden as the electoral victor and Trump continues to enjoy wide support within his party.
While members of his party have outwardly cheered on the prospect of a presidential return — a move successfully executed only once in American history by Grover Cleveland — others fear that a looming Trump candidacy will crowd out the Republican field, hindering the party from evolving beyond the Trump phenomenon and its embrace of election misinformation.
Despite Trump's legal challenges, the transition toward the Biden administration is well underway, with Biden releasing a number of planned key administration nominations over the past few weeks.
Wednesday's poll found Democrats reacting largely favorably to Biden's picks. But most respondents — Democrats and Republicans alike — were unable to identify the potential nominees.
For example, 50 percent of Democrats approved of Biden's pick for secretary of State, Antony Blinken, compared with only 6 percent disapproving. But 45 percent said they didn't know or had no opinion. Twenty three percent said they knew nothing about him at all. Among respondents overall, 61 percent said they have heard little to nothing about Blinken.
Respondents gave similar answers for Janet Yellen, Biden's pick for Treasury secretary who had a strong public presence as the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve. Fifty eight percent of Democrats said they had a favorable opinion of Yellen, but 37 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of Republicans said they either had no opinion or knew nothing about Yellen.
The poll was conducted online from Dec. 4-6 among 1,990 registered voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
