Iowa poll: Trump maintains GOP lead with 51 percent support

With five weeks until the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump continues to gain support in Iowa while Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley battle for second place, according to an NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll released Monday.

The former president’s support grew in the state with 51 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers picking Trump as their first choice for president, an uptick from 43 percent in an Iowa October Poll. Trump’s lead is the largest recorded at this point in the race in this Iowa poll’s history, according to NBC News.

Florida Gov. DeSantis gained 3 percentage points since October with 19 percent, breaking his tie with Haley, who sits at third place with 16 percent. DeSantis just wrapped a 99-county tour in the state earlier this month. Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, benefited from a 10 percent increase in Iowa from August to October but has remained steady at 16 percent since.

Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is in a distant fourth place at 5 percent. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has not campaigned in Iowa at all, sits at 4 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is at 1 percent.

Forty-nine percent of those polled say their minds are made up, while another 46 percent say they could still be persuaded to support another candidate.

Despite the many legal challenges Trump faces, the poll found that 73 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers believe Trump can win against President Joe Biden, which is up from 65 percent in October.

Trump is facing felony charges in four criminal cases regarding his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, allegations of mishandling classified documents and his connection with hush money payments to a porn star.

The poll of 502 likely Republican caucusgoers was conducted Dec. 2-7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.