BREAKING: Trump trouncing GOP rivals with 54%— 37% ahead of DeSantis— in first Times/Sienna poll for 2024

The first Times/Siena poll out for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination shows Trump far and away in the top spot. President Donald Trump, who seeks a second term in office after leaving the presidency in 2021, holds 54 percent, while his closest competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is at 17 percent. Trump leads him by 37 percent.

The poll also asked national voters about a hypothetical match-up between just Trump and DeSantis and found that voters preferred Trump 62 percent to 31 percent—by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. Both men hold strong approval ratings, however, with Trump at 76 percent and DeSantis at 66 percent. The poll found that while people like DeSantis, they love Trump. 

The rest of the field, comprised of former VP under Trump Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott, former North Carolina Governor and Bush-era neo-con Nikki Hayley, businessman and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, are all polling at 3 percent or below.

The poll shows that across demographic groups, regions, spanning the various ideological wings of the current GOP, Trump "led by wide margins among mena nd women, younger nad older voters, moderates, conservatives, those who went to college and those who didn't," and in cities, rural locations, and suburbs.

As to Trump's mounting legal woes, which many have called a political prosecution, voters were not particularly concerned. Only 17 percent feel that Trump has "committed any serious federal crimes." And of those, 22 percent would still vote for Trump.

The poll also found that DeSantis messaging is not getting through the way the campaign likely wishes it would. DeSantis has been marketed as more electable in the general election against Joe Biden, and would "govern more effectively," the Times reports. But for many, DeSantis, who espouses many of the same views and policies as Trump, is simply Trump lite.

DeSantis is pushing the idea that he has a better chance of beating Biden, citing an electoral record in Florida, where Trump campaigned for DeSantis, pushing him over the edge to victory first in the 2018 primary, and then in the general election. 58 percent of surveyed GOP voters, however, said that Trump was best "able to beat Joe Biden."

Trump beat out DeSantis in the questions of who was a "strong leader,"who could "get things done," who was best "able to beat Joe Biden," and who was "fun," but was more evenly matched on the question of who was more "likeable," and slid slightly behind DeSantis when it came to who voters feel is more "moral."

89 percent of those polled because the country is "headed in the wrong direction." The "anti-Trump" faction of the GOP is about one in four GOP voters, which isn't enough to tip the scales toward DeSantis. 

The poll was conducted from 932 likely GOP voters via phone from July 23-27. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.96 percent.