Republican voters back Donald Trump overwhelmingly to manage US economy

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Two-thirds of Republican voters say they trust Donald Trump more than any other GOP presidential candidate to manage the US economy, according to an FT-Michigan Ross survey that underscores his dominance on bread-and-butter issues a week before primary season gets under way.

The findings are particularly problematic for Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who has surged in the polls to become the biggest threat to the former president.

Only 8 per cent of Republican voters said she would be their choice to handle the US economy, while 67 per cent picked Trump. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose floundering campaign has been overtaken by Haley in some early voting states, was the choice of 9 per cent of respondents.

The Iowa caucuses on January 15 will fire the starting gun on the primary process in which Republican voters will select their party’s nominee for the White House in 2024. New Hampshire’s primary will follow a week later.

The Financial Times’s polling on the economy reflects Trump’s commanding lead among Republicans in early primary race states, where he enjoys the support of about half of Iowa’s caucus-goers and 44 per cent of GOP voters in New Hampshire. DeSantis is polling in second in Iowa with 18.4 per cent, while Haley is second in New Hampshire on 25.7 per cent.

On the campaign trail, Trump has touted the strength of the US economy when he was in the White House and insisted that the “next economic boom” would start the “instant” he is elected as president in November.

Haley, a former ambassador to the UN who has leaned heavily on her foreign policy credentials, has sold herself as a fiscal conservative and blamed inflation on billions of dollars in federal spending by the Trump and Biden administrations. DeSantis has vowed to slash taxes if elected and proposed a single flat federal income…