All GOP presidential candidates ahead of Biden in new poll, Haley holds largest lead

All GOP presidential candidates were leading President Biden in a new poll released just before the Iowa Caucus, with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley having the widest margin at eight percentage points.

A CBS News/YouGov survey released on Sunday found Haley, 51, beating Biden, 81, in a hypothetical matchup, 53% to 45%, among US adults nationwide.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 45, was ahead of the president by three percentage points (51% to 48%), and former president Donald Trump, 77, was close behind in a head-to-head with Biden, 50% to 48%.

Additionally, the CBS/YouGov poll showed American independent voters swung for Haley by 59%, whereas 55% said they would support DeSantis and 54% said they would support Trump.

The former president celebrated a landslide victory in the Iowa Caucus Monday night, with media outlets calling the race a half hour after it began and Trump eventually winning all but one state precinct, which went for Haley by a single vote.

A historic 51% of Iowans backed Trump’s third bid for the Republican presidential nomination, 21.2% supported DeSantis’ run and 19.1% voted for Haley.

The 45th president mock-congratulated his competitors following the near-clean sweep of the Hawkeye State before calling on them to drop out.

“I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki for having a good time together. We’re all having a good time together,” he said, adding that each “did very well.”

“I really think this is time now for everybody in our country to come together. We want to come together — whether it’s Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative,” he went on.

“It would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world and straighten out the problems and straighten out all of the death and destruction that we’re witnessing.”

Among US respondents to the Sunday survey, 84% want their next president to “show toughness,” the same percentage want the future commander-in-chief to “show empathy” and 83% want him or her to be “open to compromise.”

When those groups were polled separately, 59% of those who wanted a “tough” president supported Haley while 39% supported Biden. The two were tied for “empathy” voters and Haley had a two-percentage-point lead with “compromise” voters.

The former South Carolina governor urged her supporters in a post-caucus speech to rally around her as she looks for an upset win against Trump in the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23, appealing to a majority of US voters who in polls have shown they don’t want a rematch of the 2020 election.

“Both lack a vision for our country’s future because both are consumed by the past, by investigations, by vendettas, by grievances,” Haley said. “America deserves better.”

“And as we head to New Hampshire, I have one more thing to say: We’re going to win,” she added. “Underestimate me, because that’s always fun.”

With the departure of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Haley may be able to gain enough support to surge ahead of Trump in the Granite State, where she is within striking distance, according to recent polls.

Meanwhile, DeSantis will first head to South Carolina to shore up votes before heading back to New Hampshire for a scheduled CNN town hall.

Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the 2024 presidential race hours after the Iowa Caucus, where he won just 7.7% of the vote.

“We did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight,” the 38-year-old multimillionaire candidate told supporters in Des Moines. “There’s no path for me to be the next president, absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country.”

“This has to be an America First candidate in that White House. As I’ve said since the beginning there are two America First candidates,” he added, before announcing his endorsement for Trump.

The survey was conducted from Jan. 10 to 12 with a nationally representative sample size of 2,870 US adults. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.