Trump pollster finds 50 per cent of Republicans open to another nominee in 2020

US President Donald Trump. Photo / AP

Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster who helped elect US President Donald Trump in 2016 by targeting the Democrats' "blue wall" for weaknesses, attempted to humble the White House's critics today with a very early 2020 primary poll.

It didn't necessarily work as planned.

In a tweet, Fabrizio shared answers from a new national survey of Republican voters, one of them asking whether they would support the President for renomination.

"So much for the 'buyer's remorse' that DC insiders are convinced the GOP has," Fabrizio wrote.

But the poll itself found the President in a surprisingly weak position, with just 50 per cent of all Republican voters - 54 per cent of those certain to vote in a primary - supporting another Trump nomination.

Twenty-four per cent backed either Senator Ted Cruz or Governor John Kasich, the last rivals standing in the 2016 Republicans primaries.

Two per cent backed either Senator Ben Sasse, or Senator Tom Cotton, one a Trump critic, one a rising star. Another 24 per cent were wholly undecided.

Trump's louder critics, however, focused on the high number of Republicans open to a Trump alternative.

There's little precedent for that much resistance to an incumbent president just eight months into his term.

A November 2010 poll, taken after Democrats had lost President Barack Obama's first midterm by a landslide, found 64 per cent of Democrats ready to renominate the president, 16 per cent favouring 2008 rival Hillary Clinton and 14 per cent undecided.

There was not then, as there is now, a punchy group of partisans talking about ousting the incumbent from inside his party.

The first Twitter responses to Fabrizio came from #NeverTrump conservatives feeling good about the trendline.

Bill Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, tweeted: "That Trump's pollsters chose to do this primary poll & release it triumphally when it has the incumbent at a mere 50%, shows near-panic".

But further down in the survey, Fabrizio revealed that even Republicans on the fence about 2020 were putting blame for inaction in Washington on the rest of the party.

Fabrizio tweeted: "Double whammy for GOPers in Congress - get blame for ObamaCare repeal/replace failure and base will blame them if @POTUS agenda not passed".