Created by Dave Peterson, Political Science, and Deb Berger, Strategic Relations and Communications, at Iowa State University, Dec. 14, 2023. Larger image.
AMES, Iowa — The race for second place among Republican presidential nominees is tightening. That’s according to the latest Iowa State University/Civiqs poll, which surveyed registered voters from Dec. 8-13.
Of the 438 participants who said they “definitely” or “probably” will attend the Iowa Republican Caucuses on Jan. 15, 2024, over half (54%) said their first pick is former president Donald Trump. This is consistent with results from November. Women and participants aged 50 years and up were more likely to select Trump as their top choice.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis remains in second place as the Republican presidential nominee, but the gap with former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has shrunk. DeSantis dropped from 18% to 17% between November and December while Haley grew from 12% to 15% as likely caucus-goers' first pick.
DeSantis polled his best with likely GOP caucus-goers who were between 35 and 49 years of age. Haley received her greatest support from those between 18 to 35 years of age. Both candidates received near equal support from men and women.
When asked which candidate is their second choice, 25% of likely Republican caucus-goers chose DeSantis; 22% picked Haley and 19% selected commentator and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump received 14% for the second-choice candidate.
"The big takeaway, aside from Trump’s sizeable lead, is that the other candidates are running out of time, and it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of potential for Iowans to change their mind going into January,” says Lucken Professor of Political Science Dave Peterson who organized the ISU/Civiqs poll.
In the latest poll, almost three-quarters of the participants said their minds were made up regarding their first-choice candidate, compared to about half from the first wave of results in September.
Peterson says another change from previous polls relates to the question about GOP candidates that likely caucus-goers oppose.
“In particular, Donald Trump’s opposition has gone up,” says Peterson. “The other change in the ‘not want’ is that Nikki Haley’s negatives have gone up a little bit. As she’s gone up in the polls in terms of her support, her opposition has increased.”
Created Dec. 14, 2023 by Dave Peterson, Political Science, and Deb Berger, Strategic Relations and Communications at Iowa State University. Larger image.
Peterson says part of what makes the Iowa State University/Civiqs poll unique is that some participants are surveyed multiple times across the five months leading up to the caucuses. This design decision makes it easier to track shifting perspectives. Even though the 2023/2024 caucus season has shown very little movement compared to previous years, Peterson is noticing other changes in the survey data.
In January, Peterson and four undergraduate student researchers will compile and publish additional findings from the monthly surveys. This includes the survey participants’ emotional reactions to presidential candidates, motivations for participating in or abstaining from the political process, and issues that unite and divide voters within the Republican Party.
The online survey was sent to selected members of the Civiqs research panel. An oversample of Republicans and independents were selected to produce a larger number of likely caucus attendees.
The survey results are weighted by age, race, gender, education, party identification and congressional district to be representative of the population of registered voters and likely Republican Caucus attendees in Iowa. The survey has a margin of error of ±4.3% for registered voters and ±6.0% for likely Republican Caucus attendees, both at the 95% confidence level, accounting for the design effect.
Results of the next poll are expected the second week of January.
Funding for the poll is provided by Iowa State’s Department of Political Science, the Lucken Professorship in Political Science and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.