NEW YORK – Former US president Donald Trump is dominating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, leading his nearest challenger, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate, according to the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign.

Trump held decisive advantages across almost every demographic group and region and in every ideological wing of the party, the survey found, as Republican voters waved away concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy.

He led by wide margins among men and women, younger and older voters, moderates and conservatives, those who went to college and those who did not, and in cities, suburbs and rural areas.

The poll of 932 voters in the likely Republican primary electorate was conducted by telephone using live operators from July 23 to 27.

It shows that some of Mr DeSantis’ central campaign arguments – that he is more electable than Trump and that he would govern more effectively – have so far failed to break through. Even Republicans motivated by the type of issues that have fuelled Mr DeSantis’ rise, such as fighting “radical woke ideology”, favoured Trump.

Overall, Trump led Mr DeSantis 54 per cent to 17 per cent. No other candidate topped 3 per cent support in the poll.

Below those lopsided top-line figures were other ominous signs for Mr DeSantis. He performed his weakest among some of the Republican Party’s biggest and most influential constituencies.

He earned only 9 per cent support among voters who are at least 65 years old and 13 per cent of those without a college degree. Republicans who described themselves as “very conservative” favoured Trump by a 50-point margin, 65 per cent to 15 per cent.

Still, no other serious Trump challenger has emerged besides Mr DeSantis. Former vice-president Mike Pence, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina each scored 3 per cent support.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy each received support from just 2 per cent.

Yet, even if all those candidates disappeared and Mr DeSantis got a hypothetical one-on-one race against Trump, he would still lose by a 2-to-1 margin, 62 per cent to 31 per cent, the poll found.

That is a stark reminder that, for all the fretting among anti-Trump forces that the party would divide itself in a repeat of 2016, Trump is poised to trounce even a unified opposition.

The survey comes less than six months before the first 2024 primary contest and before a single debate. In an era of American politics defined by its volatility, Trump’s legal troubles – his trials threaten to overlap with primary season – pose an especially unpredictable wild card.

For now, though, Trump appears to match the surly mood of the Republican electorate, 89 per cent of whom see the nation as headed in the wrong direction, and Republicans’ desire to take the fight to the Democrats.

“He might say mean things and make all the men cry, because all the men are wearing your wife’s underpants and you can’t be a man any more,” said Mr David Green, 69, a retail manager in Somersworth, New Hampshire, of Trump. “You got to be a little sissy and cry about everything. But at the end of the day, you want results. Donald Trump’s my guy. He’s proved it on a national level.”

Trump and Mr DeSantis maintain strong overall favourable ratings from Republicans, 76 per cent and 66 per cent, respectively.

That Mr DeSantis is still so well liked after a drumbeat of news coverage questioning his ability to connect with voters, and more than US$20 million (S$27 million) in attack ads from a Trump super PAC, demonstrates a certain resiliency. His political team has argued that his overall positive image with GOP voters provides a solid foundation on which to build.

But the intensity of the former president’s support is a key difference, as 43 per cent of Republicans have a “very favourable” opinion of Trump – a cohort that he carries by an overwhelming 92 per cent to 7 per cent margin in a one-on-one race with Mr DeSantis.

By contrast, Mr DeSantis is stuck in an effective tie with Mr Trump, edging him 49 per cent to 48 per cent, among the smaller share of primary voters (25 per cent) who view the Florida governor very favourably.

In interviews with poll respondents, a recurring theme emerged: They like Mr DeSantis; they love Trump.

“DeSantis, I have high hopes. But as long as Trump’s there, Trump’s the man,” said Mr Daniel Brown, 58, a retired technician at a nuclear plant from Bumpass, Virginia.

“If he wasn’t running against Trump, DeSantis would be my very next choice,” said Mr Stanton Strohmenger, 48, a maintenance technician in Washington Township, Ohio.

A number of respondents interviewed drew a distinction between Mr DeSantis’ accomplishments in Florida’s capital, Tallahassee, and Trump’s in the White House.

“Trump has proven his clout,” said Ms Mallory Butler, 39, of Polk County, Florida. “And DeSantis has, but in a much smaller arena.”

The truly anti-Trump faction of the Republican electorate appears to hover near one in four GOP voters, hardly enough to dethrone him.

Only 19 per cent of the electorate said Trump’s behaviour after his 2020 defeat threatened American democracy.

And only 17 per cent see him as having committed any serious federal crimes, despite his indictment by a federal grand jury on charges of mishandling classified documents and his receipt of a so-called target letter in the separate election interference case being brought by the office of the special counsel, Mr Jack Smith.

“I think Donald Trump is going to carry a lot of baggage to the election with him,” said Madam Hilda Bulla, 68, of Davidson County, North Carolina, who supports Mr DeSantis.

Yet, Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is so strong the poll found that in a head-to-head contest with Mr DeSantis, the former president still received 22 per cent among voters who believe he has committed serious federal crimes – a greater share than the 17 per cent that Mr DeSantis earned from the entire GOP electorate.

Mr DeSantis has made taking on “woke” institutions a centrepiece of his political identity.

But when given a choice between a hypothetical candidate who prioritised “defeating radical woke ideology” or one who was focused on “law and order in our streets and at the border”, only 24 per cent said they would be more likely to support the candidate focused on fighting “woke” issues.

Equally problematic for Mr DeSantis is that those “woke”-focused voters still preferred Trump, 61 per cent to 36 per cent.

The ability to defeat President Joe Biden and to enact a conservative agenda is at the core of Mr DeSantis’ appeal to Republicans.

He has warned that Trump has saddled the party with a “culture of losing” in the Trump years, and has held up his resounding 2022 re-election in the once-purple state of Florida as a model for the GOP.

As governor, he has pushed through a sweeping set of conservative priorities that have sharply reoriented his state and promised he would bring the same policymaking zeal to the White House.

Yet, these arguments do not appear to be working. A strong majority of Republicans surveyed, 58 per cent, said it was Trump, not Mr DeSantis, who was best described by the phrase “able to beat Joe Biden”. And again, it was Trump, by a lopsided margin of 67 per cent to 22 per cent, who was seen more as the one to “get things done.”

Mr DeSantis narrowly edged Trump on being seen as “likeable” and “moral”. Interestingly, the share of Republicans who said Trump was more “fun” than Mr DeSantis (54 per cent to 16 per cent) almost perfectly mirrored the overall horse race.

“He does not come across with humour,” Madam Sandra Reher, 75, a retired teacher in Farmingdale, New Jersey, said of Mr DeSantis. “He comes across as a – a good Christian man, wonderful family man. But he doesn’t have that fire, if you will, that Trump has.”

Increasingly on the trail, Mr DeSantis is calling attention to his “blue-collar” roots and his decision to serve in the military as reasons voters should support him as he runs against a self-professed billionaire.

But the poll showed Trump lapping Mr DeSantis among likely Republican primary voters earning less than US$50,000 (S$66,400), at 65 per cent to 9 per cent.

As of now, Mr DeSantis’ few demographic refuges – places where he is losing by smaller margins – are more-upscale pockets of the electorate.

He trailed Mr Trump by a less-daunting 12 points among white voters with college degrees, 37 per cent to 25 per cent. Among those earning more than US$100,000, Mr DeSantis was behind by 23 points, half the deficit he faced among the lowest earners.

The fractured field appears to be preventing Mr DeSantis from consolidating the support of such voters: In the hypothetical one-on-one race, Mr DeSantis was statistically tied with Trump among white college-educated voters.

On a range of issues, the poll suggests it will be difficult for Mr DeSantis to break through against Trump on policy arguments alone.

In the head-to-head match up, Trump was far ahead of Mr DeSantis among Republicans who accept transgender people as the gender they identify with, and among those who do not; among those who want to fight corporations that “promote woke left ideology” and among those who prefer to stay out of what businesses do; among those who want to send more military and economic aid to Ukraine, and among those who do not; among those who want to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are; and among those who want to take steps to reduce the budget deficit.

Mr Trump leads Mr DeSantis among Republicans who believe abortion should always be legal, and among those who believe it should always be illegal.

Mr DeSantis signed a strict six-week abortion ban that Trump has criticised as “too harsh.” Yet, Mr Trump enjoyed the support of 70 per cent of Republicans who said they strongly supported such a measure.

Mr Marcel Paba, a 22-year-old server in Miami, liked what Mr DeSantis had done for his state but did not think the governor could overcome the enthusiasm for Trump.

“There are just more die-hard fans of Trump than there are of Ron DeSantis. Even in Florida,” he said. “I don’t see people wearing a Ron DeSantis hat anywhere, you know?” NYTIMES