Hot Air/Townhall media straw poll, round one: A real fight brewing!

Last month, Townhall Media and Salem Media Group launched the first round of its 2024 GOP Straw Poll, offering readers a chance to sound off on their preferences in the race to the Republican presidential nomination. We got a big response, too — nearly 40,000 respondents cast votes in the first three weeks of the polling. (And if you want to participate, you can still do so at this link!)

We have multiple result sets, both overall and for each of the sites, including data specific to Hot Air’s readers. First, let’s check the overall results, combining the website and radio audiences, where Donald Trump performs at the same level as most campaign polling. However, Ron DeSantis comes much closer to Trump than in other national polling, and everyone else fades into the statistical noise:

What about the results for readers at Hot Air? The outcome looks very different. In fact, DeSantis scores two-thirds of respondents here, while Trump fades into the second tier all by himself. I’ve charted the results myself here:

Ninety-one percent of Hot Air readers see this as a two-person race. That’s a pretty impressive outcome, although overall at THM/Salem, it’s 90% too. At Real Clear Politics, the averages show closer to 75% of GOP primary voters seeing this as a two-person race. Here’s the RCP chart from last week:

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Interestingly, the results from our other sites differ significantly. Check out our sister sites for the specific numbers, but Hot Air readers have the most support for DeSantis among the group. Twitchy also has a strong DeSantis showing, while Trump leads at Townhall and Bearing Arms. It’s close enough to be a toss-up at PJM and RedState. The best outcome for any other candidate comes from Bearing Arms — but again, go check that out for the actual numbers.

We will have this straw poll rolling through March of next year, and readers can join anytime — but only vote once per month. Again, go to this link to vote if you have not yet done so. We’ll be back with more data each month, and possibly more often than that, to keep readers abreast on how they see the race and where we may be heading. Stay tuned!