Leger: Trump +6, Pence +4 without Trump (Includes voters of all parties)

[Alben Barkley]

Caution about polls notwithstanding, I don’t find it the HARDEST thing in the world to believe. Romney was banking on guiding the GOP back to something resembling sanity post-Trump, clearly, and it was only eight years ago he was the leader of the party. Trump won with a plurality, and although he definitely got the GOP base to fall lockstep behind him, a lot of that was softer support and polls consistently showed that even many people who said they approved of him would prefer someone else. His actual diehard base, those who are his biggest fans, has not actually grown THAT much since 2016, it seems.

In any case, if Romney does intend to run again, he should take this as an encouraging sign that there’s hope the GOP voters could be persuaded to move on. Keep in mind their last three presidential nominees (W, McCain, and Romney himself) have all been thrown under the bus and disavowed lately by much of the GOP. After they insisted to all of us Democrats we were anti-American for not supporting them. It’s a fickle party, to say the least. Don’t be too surprised when Trump is next on the chopping block.

Trump should certainly be concerned, too, if he can only keep a quarter of the party solidly in his camp even NOW, before his presidency is even over officially. If he can’t do better than that now, how the hell will he win the primary in four years?

[Alben Barkley]

These aren’t the right numbers.  The poll asks *all* respondents, whether they are Republicans or not, who would be their choice for the 2024 GOP presidential primary.  But including Democrats in the sample doesn’t make any sense, since Democrats are largely not going to vote in a GOP primary.  The sample as constructed has close to equal numbers of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, which makes no sense if the goal is to poll a Republican primary.

If you limit it Republicans only, then it’s:

Trump 45%
Pence 22%
Romney 8%
Cruz 7%
Rubio 5%
Carlson 4%
Haley 4%
Kasich 2%
Pompeo 2%
Rick Scott 2%
Santorum 1%

If Trump doesn’t run:

Pence 44%
Cruz 14%
Romney 11%
Carlson 6%
Haley 6%
Rubio 6%
Pompeo 3%
Santorum 3%
Kasich 2%
Rick Scott 2%

Well that’s dumb and changes everything. Still, Trump only at a plurality rather than an absolute majority shows some vulnerability. Interesting Pence does just as well without him; he’s polling much stronger even against Trump than I expected.