Former President Donald Trump is leading Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by 32 points in the latest poll out of Iowa.
The Iowa caucuses begin in just over a month, on January 15.
A new NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll released on Monday found that 51 percent of Republicans who are likely to participate in the caucuses favor Trump as their first choice. This represents an eight-point boost from the same poll in October.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has just 19 percent support and Nikki Haley has 16 percent.
According to NBC News, Trump's massive lead is the "largest recorded so close to a competitive Republican caucus in this Iowa poll’s history."
Trump's base is not planning to budge, either.
“With all the other candidates, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what they say, it doesn’t matter what they do. Because automatically, my vote is going to Trump no matter what,” poll respondent Timothy Blackerby, 67, of Missouri Valley, told the pollsters.
“They can promise me a million dollars,” Blackerby continued. “I tell them to keep it. And I would still vote for Trump.”
The pollsters report that "an overwhelming share of Trump’s supporters — 70% — say their minds are already made up."
"By contrast, just 30% of DeSantis’ supporters and only 34% of Haley’s say their minds are made up," the report added.
An overwhelming majority, 73 percent, believe that Trump can defeat President Joe Biden in the general election, despite his legal challenges. This is up from 65 percent who said the same in October.
“I think a ham sandwich could probably win a general election against Joe Biden. And it’s all Biden’s fault,” poll respondent Aaron Mann, 30, of Fort Madison, who said he is caucusing for Trump, told the pollsters.
The NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll was conducted Dec. 2-7 of 502 likely Republican caucusgoers, and it has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
