Trump leads DeSantis in Florida following indictment: poll

Former President Donald Trump leads his prospective rival for the GOP's presidential nomination, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, in the state both call home.

A Victory Insights survey released Monday indicates that the former president would handily defeat the governor in a head to head matchup in Florida, with Trump taking 46.6% support to DeSantis's 31.8% in a one on one. Without DeSantis in the contest, Trump stands far ahead of his other rivals, claiming 65.9% support to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley's 7.8%, who stood as his closest challenger.

The April survey shows Trump improving considerably over the results of the same poll's November results. In that survey, Trump trailed the Florida governor  36.5% to 47.4%.

DeSantis has not formally announced a presidential bid, though he is widely expected to do so. Apart from Trump and Haley, the survey also allowed respondents to opt for declared candidates Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas; Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech mogul; and businessman Perry Johnson, none of whom earned double digit support.

The survey comes in the wake of Trump's indictment in New York as part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against him over a 2016 payment his then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, made to Stormy Daniels. The incident appears to have benefitted Trump politically, with 87.7% of respondents indicating they believe the action was "politically motivated."

Trump has labelled the case a political witch hunt while legal scholars have questioned its merits.

Conducted April 6-8, the survey questioned 1,000 likely GOP presidential primary voters in Florida and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.