Former President Donald Trump smiles at supporters as he drives through West Palm Beach, Florida, on February 13. Photo / AP
Former President Donald Trump smiles at supporters as he drives through West Palm Beach, Florida, on February 13. Photo / AP
Former US president Donald Trump is still a dominant force in the Republican Party and would win its 2024 presidential nomination in a landslide if the voters were choosing today, according to a new poll.
Republican leaders are fighting over Trump's future role in the party, with some pushing for the Trump era to come to an end.
On Saturday, seven members of the former president's party voted to convict him in his Senate impeachment trial. Conviction would almost certainly have resulted in him being barred from running for office again.
It didn't happen – the 57-43 margin in the Senate fell well short of the 67 guilty votes needed – which means Trump's future, should he decide to run again, is up to the voters.
The fresh poll today from Politico/Morning Consult shows Republican voters would overwhelmingly pick him again.
Respondents were asked to name their favoured candidate for the 2024 nomination. Obviously, we're years away from the Republican primaries at this point, so these numbers could change. But as things stand, Trump is the runaway favourite with 53 per cent.
Trump's vice-president, Mike Pence, is in second place with 12 per cent. He's followed by Donald Trump jnr (6 per cent); former UN ambassador Nikki Haley (6); senators Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz (4); senator Marco Rubio (2); former secretary of state Mike Pompeo (2); and a cluster of people on 1 per cent, including senators Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton, and state governors Kristi Noem and Larry Hogan.
Fifty-nine per cent of Republicans say Trump should continue to play a "major role" in the party, compared to just 17 per cent who say he should have no role whatsoever. That's up from 41 per cent who said the same in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot.
Speaking of which, only 27 per cent of Republicans believe Trump was "at least somewhat" responsible for the riot. Meanwhile, 46 per cent say President Joe Biden, whose election victory the rioters were trying to stop, bears responsibility for the violence.
The poll surveyed voters more broadly, among whom Trump's standing is awful. His overall approval rating registered at 34 per cent. But among the Republicans who will decide who leads their party into 2024, his approval was a much healthier 81 per cent.
Donald Trump Jr - who is currently Republican voters' no. 3 pick for president, with partner Kimberly Guilfoyle in 2019. Photo / Gage Skidmore, Wikipedia
Of the other potential presidential candidates mentioned, Haley, Romney and Hogan are the only ones who have expressed a desire for the party to move away from Trump's influence.
Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who served as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, publicly broke from him in a recent interview with Politico.
"We need to acknowledge he let us down," Haley said.
"He went down a path he shouldn't have, and we shouldn't have followed him, and we shouldn't have listened to him. And we can't let that ever happen again."
Haley is already widely expected to run for president in 2024. She said she did not believe Trump would be a candidate.
"He's not going to run for federal office again," she said.
Republicans are getting more unified by the day. Stopping Keystone pipeline, choosing unions over our kids, raising the minimum wage, opening the borders, weak foreign policy. And its only been two weeks.
Romney, the party's 2012 presidential nominee, was one of the seven Republican senators to vote guilty in Trump's impeachment trial. A longtime Trump critic, Romney was also the only Republican to vote guilty in his first trial a year ago.
"President Trump incited the insurrection against Congress by using the power of his office to summon his supporters to Washington on January 6 and urging them to march on the Capitol during the counting of electoral votes," Romney said, explaining his vote to convict.
"He did this despite the obvious and well known threats of violence that day.
"President Trump also violated his oath of office by failing to protect the Capitol, the vice-president, and others in the Capitol. Each and every one of these conclusions compels me to support conviction."
Speaking to NBC after the trial, Hogan said he believed there would be a "real battle for the soul of the Republican Party" in the coming months.
"We're going to figure out whether we're going to be a party that can win elections or not," said Hogan, who is Governor of Democratic-leaning Maryland.
Host Chuck Todd asked whether the party could find success "without distancing itself" from the former president.
"I don't think they can," he replied.
"I think the party has a winning message. We just had a bad messenger, and I think we've got to move on from the cult of Donald Trump and return to the basic principles the party has always stood for."
He made similar remarks to CNN.
"We're going to have a real battle for the soul of the Republican Party."
Every other name on the list of potential candidates is a Trump supporter.
Pence was a loyal vice-president for four years, though his relationship with Trump soured at the end, as Pence refused to unilaterally - and illegally - overturn the election result during the joint session of Congress on January 6.
The pair did not speak for days after the riot, during which some of Trump's supporters chanted about hanging Pence as a "traitor".
Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton all voted to acquit Trump during the impeachment trial. Cruz went so far as to give advice to the former president's defence team throughout proceedings.
Mike Pompeo was Trump's second secretary of state, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was one of his most vociferous defenders in the media throughout last year's election campaign.
Donald jnr, of course, is the former president's eldest son. His immediate reaction to the acquittal on Saturday was to lash out at the Republicans who voted guilty.
"You obviously had the typical, the loser Republicans that couldn't get elected dog catcher today," he said.
"The ones that are so weak, like the Mitt Romneys of the world. With Republicans like Mitt Romney, who needs Democrats. Those clowns."
