ATLANTA — A recent poll by the School of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia shows former President Donald Trump with a large lead over 2024 presidential prospects despite legal woes in various states.

Slightly more than 50% of respondents in a field of 983 likely Georgia Republican voters indicated they would choose Trump as their first choice in a 2024 presidential primary over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who 30% of respondents selected as their first choice.

Also included in the list of 12 presidential prospects was former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley who had 4% of first-choice votes and former Vice President Mike Pence who had 2.3%.

Approximately 89% said Trump’s recent indictment by the Manhattan district attorney should not disqualify him from running for president again, while 7.7% said it should.

The indictment alleges Trump falsified business records, in part, for payments to women he allegedly had affairs with to remain silent. Trump also has a civil lawsuit against him by the New York attorney general for alleged financial fraud in securing bank loans and other fraudulent crimes. 

Jack White, U.S. special counsel, is overseeing investigations into Trump’s involvement with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice involving classified documents at his property.

Fulton County, Georgia’s District Attorney is also expected to announce in coming weeks if charges will be brought against Trump and others for alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election.

Regardless of these allegations, 78% of respondents in the UGA poll reported a  “favorable” opinion of Trump and 18% said they had an unfavorable opinion of him. Sixty percent reported a favorable opinion of Pence and 31% reported an unfavorable opinion him.

DeSantis had the highest favorable opinion at 81.2%

According to the poll, conducted in early April, 6.2% of respondents indicated they would vote for the Democrat nominee if Trump were to be the Republican nominee for president, 3.3% said they would vote for a third-party candidate and 2.2% said they would skip over the presidential election on the ballot. 

The poll provides some sort of insight to the Republican electorate in Georgia, which is among several key swing states, including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where a Democrat or Republican could win.

In the November 2020 presidential election in Georgia, Democrats took two U.S. Senate seats that were held by Republicans following an early 2021 runoff election, and Democrat President Joe Biden’s secured a victory over Trump.

Leading up to the state’s next big elections in 2022, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had bore the brunt of Trump’s election fraud attacks, with claims that they — and leaders in several states — allowed the November 2020 elections to be “stolen” from Republicans due to election fraud, though audits repeatedly confirmed the results certifying Trump’s defeat.

Raffensperger narrowly avoided a runoff but largely defeated Trump-backed candidate Jody Hice in the 2022 Republican primary for secretary of state; Raffensperger later won the general election; incumbent Attorney General Chris Carr held his seat against Trump-endorsed opponent John Gordon by a landslide in their 2022 primary.

Burt Jones is the only Trump-backed candidate that succeeded at the state-level races, clenching just more than 50% of the votes to avoid a Republican runoff for lieutenant governor. He later won the seat in the November 2022 general election.

Avid Trump supporter U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, District 14, swept her five challengers in the 2022 Republican primary.

Famed Georgia football star Herschel Walker was the Republican challenger in the U.S. Senate race; however, he lost a tight race to incumbent Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock, who had won the seat in a 2021 runoff against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.  

Kemp, who held his seat by a large primary margin against Trump-back David Perdue in the 2022 primary, said in a recent interview that Republicans must “focus on the future,” implying a shift from Trump to succeed in Georgia.

“We can’t get distracted. If we get distracted and talk about other things that the Democrats want to ask about, that only helps Joe Biden,” Kemp said on CNN’s State of the Union April 16.

While 34.3% of respondents in the UGA poll said beating Biden is most important to them, 46.4% said it’s most important that the Republican nominee share the same positions on major issues. Just more than 18% said the two are equally important.

“For (Republicans) to ultimately be able to win, we have to tell people what we’re for, we got to focus on the future and make the comparisons with the disaster of the Biden Administration,” Kemp, who was endorsed by Pence in 2022, said. “When you look at the border, 40-year high inflation, our domestic energy policy, our strength around the world. … If (candidates) focus on those things, we have a great chance of winning the White House in 2024.”