President Donald Trump announced his third bid for the presidency last week, opening the 2024 election campaign barely a week after the 2022 elections ended.
Trump may have been attempting to ward off potential challengers and send a message to other Republicans who may consider battling him in the GOP primary — such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who has been besting Trump by large margins in several recent polls.
Yet a new poll indicates that Trump enters the race with the presumed backing of a large share of the Republican voting bloc.
According to The Washington Times, the new survey by The Economist and YouGov asked respondents — a group that included only Republicans — a simple question: “Do you identify as a MAGA Republican?”
Overall, 42 percent agreed that they “identify” as a Make America Great Again Republican.
After Trump’s speech last week, perhaps that should be MAGGA Republican since the 45th president said his campaign was to “make America great and glorious again.”
The Times noted that those who claim the MAGA label include 48 percent of men, 47 percent of Trump supporters from 2020, 44 percent of self-described “conservative” Republicans, as well as 29 percent of “moderate” GOP members.
Surprisingly, the Times added, the MAGA designation was embraced by 70 percent of respondents who reported identifying as “liberal” Republicans.
That was the highest support for the MAGA title among the 24 different demographic categories the pollsters created for the survey.
And as if Democrats, especially in Florida, didn’t have enough to think about in the identity-politics Olympics, the second-largest group of MAGA Republicans were Hispanics, at 67 percent.
Yet the poll signaled that a viable competitor could have an almost equally strong base to work from in challenging Trump.
On the other side were the non-MAGA types, who amounted to 41 percent of Republicans.
Within that group, 52 percent of respondents were between ages 18 and 29, 51 percent of suburban dwellers, and 48 percent of people who made more than $100,000 a year.
Then, there were the unsure.
In all, 17 percent of respondents could not declare whether or not they were MAGA. And the largest number of groups in the unsure column were “moderate” Republicans (25 percent), rural Republicans (23 percent), and women (22 percent).
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