A ‘civil war’ looms in the Republican party as Trump rages at polls showing DeSantis is more popular, warns GOP donor

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Former President Trump raged against polling that suggests Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would beat him in a hypothetical primary match-up.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump referenced a new Wall Street Journal poll which suggested that DeSantis would get 52% of the vote while Trump would get 38%. 

“Great polling has just come out on me versus various others, including Biden, but I still have to put up with the same old “stuff” from The Wall Street Journal, which has lost an incalculable amount of influence over the years, and Fox News, whose polls on me have been seriously WRONG from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower,” Trump wrote on Thursday. 

“Same thing happened in 2016, where Fox and the WSJ went out of their way to give me bad coverage and polling and say I couldn’t win – UNTIL I WON!”

The same Wall Street Journal poll also said that 86% of respondents viewed DeSantis favorably, compared with 74% for Trump.

Trump criticized Fox News for reporting on the Wall Street Journal poll as well as a survey from USA Today/Suffolk University which said that DeSantis would beat Trump 56%-33% in a primary match-up.

Trump’s once close alliance with Fox News soured after the outlet appeared to sideline him and focus on other GOP candidates.

The former president went on to share what he called “REAL POLLING” on Truth Social, such as one from McLaughlin & Associates which saw Trump outperforming DeSantis 58% to 36%.

Trump has recently repeatedly lashed out at DeSantis, who is shaping up to be his most formidable rival. While Trump was partly blamed for the GOP’s lackluster midterm results, DeSantis won his re-election race by a wide margin.

“DeSantis is rising, and Trump is increasingly scared of being left for dead by the Republican Party,” Dan Eberhart, a GOP donor who is supporting DeSantis, told NBC News. 

“Trump is not going to let DeSantis grab his throne without a fight. We are on the eve of nothing less than a civil war in the Republican Party.”

Trump is so far the only Republican candidate to have declared themself for 2024. 

While DeSantis has not confirmed if he will run, it is widely believed that he will publicize his decision after Florida’s legislative session in the first half of next year.

While some polls put DeSantis ahead of Trump, others have been more mixed, particularly when hypothesizing a crowded field of candidates rather than a one-on-one match-up.

In a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll that listed 15 potential GOP candidates, 45% of respondents chose Trump, compared to 30% for DeSantis.

“For every bad poll, there’s a good poll,” a person close to Trump told NBC News.

The former president’s allies note that primaries are more than a year away and that polls simply reflect a snapshot in time, per NBC.