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Majority of Republicans want Trump back: poll

Nearly two-thirds of Republicans say their party should not be accepting of elected officials who criticize Trump, according to a PEW research poll.

By World Israel News Staff

A recent Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults found that two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents do not want to see President Donald Trump disappear from the political arena.

According to the Pew Research Center, they are hoping he will continue as a major political figure for many years; 44% would like him to run for president in 2024.

However, about one-in-five Republicans (22%) say that while they would like Trump to continue to be a major political figure, they would prefer he use his stature to support another presidential candidate who shares his views in the 2024 election rather than run for office himself, the survey said. About a third of Republicans (32%) say they would not like Trump to remain a national political figure.

“A majority of Republicans (63%) say their party should be not too (32%) or not at all (30%) accepting of elected officials who openly criticize Trump, according to the survey. Just 36% of Republicans say the GOP should be very (11%) or somewhat (26%) accepting of officials who do so,” according to the poll.

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The poll was conducted Sept. 13-19.

Trump, who has not announced a decision to run in the next national election, has nonetheless been actively seeking support in several states. He is scheduled to hold a rally Saturday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.

In Georgia, supporters of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp are fighting back against Trump and their own party leaders, angered by a rally last month in which the former president attacked the state’s chief executive, not for the first time.

Kemp’s proponents warn that a total embrace of Trump, his false claims about election fraud and his vendetta against the governor for not trying to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia last year could ruin Republican chances in 2022 in the narrowly divided state.

“Right now we are joined at the hip to Donald Trump, who doesn’t share the same interests,” said James Hall, a state Republican Party committee member from Savannah. “He wants to torpedo Brian Kemp.”

‘I would beat everyone’

Buoyed by the poll, he also predicted that he would win hands down if he ran against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“If you faced a Republican like Ron DeSantis in the primaries, what would it take for you to beat him?” Adam Shapiro of Yahoo Finance asked the former president.

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“Well number one I don’t think I will face him because I don’t see that if I did it,” Trump replied. “I think most people would drop out, I think he would drop out.

“If I faced him, I’d beat him like I would beat everyone else, frankly.”

However, Sky News reported, another poll in September carried out by John Bolton Super Pac had Trump and Ron DeSantis neck and neck, with 26.2% for Trump and 25.2% for DeSantis.

Associated Press contributed to this report.