Most likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers say they’ll vote for former President Donald Trump in the general election if he’s the GOP nominee, regardless of the candidate they’re supporting on caucus night.
That is, except supporters of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, with nearly half of them — 43% — saying they’d vote for Democratic President Joe Biden over Trump.
These new findings from the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa further illustrate the degree to which Haley is bringing in support from independents, Democrats and Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Fully half of her Iowa caucus supporters are independents or crossover Democrats, according to the survey results. Overall, Haley took 20% for second place in the survey, compared to 48% for Trump.
[I’m not surprised, although I suspect it’s too late for that factoid to matter in Iowa. DeSantis and Trump are close on policy, including foreign policy, but Haley’s clearly more of a centrist. That may be why she will end up as the last non-Trump candidate in the field; she has more voters to consolidate now that everyone else but DeSantis and Ramaswamy are out. I’ll have a little more on this later. — Ed]
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