…that might be eroding a bit if the results of a new My People Vote/Edgewater Research poll are to be believed. The poll still shows a majority of the state’s GOP voters would vote for Donald Trump to be its nominee over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But those who favor a move toward DeSantis as the party’s future won’t likely be too discouraged by the results.

From a press release this morning heralding the poll results…

My People Vote teamed up with Edgewater Research to conduct a poll that gauges who registered Republicans in Louisiana would support in the potential contest between former president Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the 2024 Republican nomination for president.

The survey of 474 Republican registered voters in Louisiana reveals that a majority of respondents support Donald Trump over Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination for president. The survey finds geographical and age category cleavages among registered Republicans in their preference for the 2024 presidential nominee.

Former president Donald Trump recently announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2024. Political pundits consider Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to be Trump’s main rival in securing the nomination. As a result, an interactive voice response telephone survey (IVR)1 was conducted that asked 474 randomly selected registered Republicans in Louisiana whether they would support Trump or DeSantis if the primary election was held “today”. The survey was conducted on November 15th and 16th, 2022, and yields a margin of error of +/- 4.5% at a 95% confidence level.

The poll was conducted by pollsters Dr. Edward Chervenak of Edgewater Research LLC and Dr. Tony Licciardi of My People Vote©. Dr. Chervenak is a twenty-year veteran pollster of the University of Orleans Survey Research Center (SRC). Dr. Licciardi serves as a research associate in UNO’s SRC and is the developer of the My People Vote© campaign canvassing app.

REPUBLICAN PREFERENCE FOR PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE

Former president Donald Trump enjoys a sizable advantage over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis among Republican registered voters in Louisiana. Over half, 56%, support Trump’s candidacy while 36% would like to see DeSantis win the Republican nomination, and 8% are undecided.

The 56-36 number is a big advantage for Trump but it isn’t exactly a fair fight at this point, obviously. DeSantis isn’t running for president at this point, so all he’d represent is a stand-in for “somebody other than Trump.”

It would also have been interesting if the poll would have included an “either one is fine” option and a “neither one” option. The guess is “either one is fine” would have been a majority response. Most people see DeSantis and Trump as very similar and preference between the two is based on details rather than wide-scale differences.

Interestingly enough, Trump has a 63-29 advantage among Louisiana Republicans 18-49, while he’s only ahead 50-42 with those 50 and older. You would have thought DeSantis would perform better with the younger crowd.

You can interpret that in two ways: either the younger folks simply don’t know much about DeSantis, or younger Louisiana Republicans are all aboard the idea of voting in the most bombastic, combative folks they can. Both explanations make sense; it’s the latter which would have more significant importance as relates to more immediate political developments than 2024.

Is this something to care about right now? No. Not really. There are far more important items which need to be taken care of long before we start having a Republican presidential primary. There is the Georgia senate runoff that Herschel Walker needs to win, though at present nobody seems to think Walker will do so (even though a poll yesterday showed him slightly ahead of Raphael Warnock).

Perhaps most urgent is the question of who will run the Republican Party. Ronna Romney McDaniel, the current party chair, has been mostly unsuccessful in keeping the GOP competitive with the Democrats in terms of money and also in infrastructure. The GOP is all but dead in the water in states where mail-in balloting and early voting have taken over, and that has to be fixed or else the Democrats will ballot-harvest their way into permanent political power. The inability to beat tyrants and clowns like Gretchen Whitmer, Kathy Hochul, Katie Hobbs and John Fetterman is a black mark on the party as an electoral force – especially in a wave election which saw some 5 million more Republican votes than Democrat ones across the country.

It didn’t manifest itself as a red wave because the Democrats were able to generate the ballots they needed to win in close election after close election.

A truly operative-oriented GOP would be able to break through those advantages of the Democrats, whether legitimate or otherwise. McDaniel has proven she isn’t it. Reforming the party structure toward victory is far more important than who the nominee is.