Trump's 45-point lead over his primary opponents has not changed despite his absence from the debates

Former President Donald Trump's 45-point lead over his primary opponents has not changed despite his absence from the debates, according to a report from Just The News.

Although he chose not to participate in the Republican National Committee's first primary debate last week, former Trump still looks to be in a commanding position in the party's primary.

In a recent poll conducted by The Messenger/HarrisX, Trump claimed to have the backing of 59% of Americans.

Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, came in second with 14%, while Vivek Ramaswamy, a software magnate, came in third with 8%.

There were six times as many people who voted for former VP Mike Pence than for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Chris Christie, the ex-governor of New Jersey, and Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, each received 2%.

RNC Debate Frustrations

Despite RNC officials' concerns that Trump might later regret skipping the debates, it seems as though the decision has had no effect on his popularity.

The poll was taken between Aug. 24 and 26, and it included 685 eligible voters. RealClearPolitics reports that, on average, Trump has a 40.8% advantage.

The study also revealed that Vice President Joe Biden would beat out President Trump in a direct contest, 45% to 44%. Job approval for Biden was at 43% at the time.

However, in Trump's absence, tech mogul Vivek Ramaswamy stood out as the debate's clear frontrunner.

The majority of Republican debate viewers (37%) thought he did the best, compared to 19% who chose DeSantis and 10% who thought Haley did the best.

Trump's Take on Biden

In a recent report, the former president endorsed the idea of launching an impeachment investigation against his successor, but he urged House Republicans to conduct such an investigation fairly and to determine conclusively whether Joe Biden benefited financially from his son Hunter's international business endeavors.

Trump told Just the News that the evidence collected by House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) against President Biden – including three pseudonym email accounts, suspicious bank activity reports, and contacts with shady business partners in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan, as well as an FBI informant's allegation of a $10 million cash bribe – warranted an impeachment investigation.

“I don't think when you have all these preparations, and you have all of these different methods, even all the aliases – whoever heard of (having) more aliases than Al Capone – I would think that, you know, a fair person because you want it to be fair, it has to be fair … but a fair person would have no choice but to impeach,” he said during a wide-ranging interview Thursday night on the Just the News, No Noise television show on Real America's Voice.

“The bottom line is if this cash is true, if all these things are true – you know the statement is true about the billion dollars, because he's got that (on video) – I don't know actually how Republicans could not do it. I think a Republican would be primaried and lose immediately, no matter what district they're in," he concluded.