Republicans divided on Trump’s strength as possible 2024 candidate

A majority of Republicans believe that former President Trump should be the leader of the GOP, but they remain divided on whether the ex-president would be a strong candidate if he decided to wage a bid in the 2024 election, according to a new poll.

The survey, conducted by CNN and SSRS, found that 63 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents think Trump should be the leader of the GOP, with 37 percent saying he should not.

When it asked if Republicans would have a better chance of winning the White House in 2024 with Trump or another candidate at the top of the ticket, the numbers were far closer.

Fifty-one percent of respondents said the party would have a better chance of winning the presidency in 2024 with Trump as its nominee, compared with 49 percent of Republicans who said the party would have a better chance with someone else leading the ticket.

With a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, Republicans are seemingly deadlocked on if Trump would be a strong candidate if he decided to run in the next election.

The new numbers are a stark difference from polling taken in 2019, which found that Republicans were overwhelmingly confident in Trump’s strength as a candidate.

Seventy-eight percent of respondents in March 2019 said Republicans had a better chance of winning the White House in 2020 with Trump as the party’s nominee, while only 17 percent said the GOP would have stronger odds with someone else. Six percent of respondents said they did not have an opinion.

Trump has been publicly flirting with another bid for the White House for months, saying in May that his decision will make his supporters “very happy.”

In July, he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that he has made a decision on whether he will launch a bid for the 2024 race. On Saturday, he said it’s an “easy question” whether he will run again.

CNN’s recent poll found that support for Trump is not equally distributed among demographic groups.

Sixty-nine percent of Republicans without a college degree said the former president should lead the party, compared with 49 percent of respondents who have a college degree.

Seventy-two percent of conservatives polled said Trump should be the leader of the GOP, while 49 percent of the smaller group of moderates in the party said the same.

The numbers also contrasted when it came to self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe Trump should lead the party, 71 percent to 51 percent.

The poll surveyed 2,119 individuals between Aug. 3 and Sept. 7.

The questions probing support for Trump among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents surveyed 1,050 people.