Local Politics

Iowa poll shows GOP divide over Trump remaining party leader

41% of likely caucusgoers want Trump to continue as GOP leader, but more than half are open to another direction

Posted 2023-08-21T20:34:51+00:00 - Updated 2023-08-21T20:34:51+00:00

FILE — Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor, speaks at Rep. Ashley Hinson’s BBQ Bash in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Aug. 6, 2023. Hutchinson said on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023, that he had met the qualification criteria for the first Republican presidential debate this week, which would make eight candidates onstage. (Rachel Mummey/The New York Times)

Mark Murray

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Alexandra Marquez, NBC News

Likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers are divided over whether former President Donald Trump should remain the party’s leader, according to the latest release from the new NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of the first Republican presidential contest.

Forty-one percent of likely caucusgoers believe Trump should continue as the Republican Party's leader, which almost matches the 42% in the poll who picked the former president as their first choice ahead of the Jan. 15 caucuses.

Yet a combined 57% of caucusgoers say either that Trump was a good president but it's time to consider other party leaders (26%), or that the party needs a new leader with better personal behavior and a different approach (31%).

When the national NBC News poll asked this same exact question in June, 49% of GOP primary voters said Trump should remain as the party's leader; 21% said it was time to consider other leaders; and 29% said they wanted to go in a different direction.

In the new Iowa survey, the likely GOP caucusgoers who want Trump to remain as party leader overwhelmingly pick the former president as their first choice for Iowa's Jan. 15 contest.

But those who say they're open to new leaders choose Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (who gets 38% support from this group), then Trump (15%) – followed by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., (9%), former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley (8%) and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (8%).

And those who want to go in a completely different direction are divided in their first-choice support among DeSantis (23%), Scott (16%), former Vice President Mike Pence (12%), Haley (11%) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (10%).

The NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll was conducted Aug. 13-17 of 406 likely Republican caucusgoers, who said that they will definitely or probably attend the 2024 caucuses. It has an overall margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.9 percentage points.