Former President Donald Trump's dominance of the GOP primary process continued with the latest round of polling as his support among the GOP base increased six points from November to December in the latest Fox News poll.

Trump now has 69% support from Republicans with his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, more than 55 points behind him at 12%.

In fact, all of Trump's rivals combined now have less than half the amount of support he has, even though he faces four criminal indictments and a civil trial that could see him fined $250 million and stripped of the right to run his own company.

Trump also has a four-point lead over President Joe Biden in the poll, one point more than the poll's 3 point margin of error for voters overall.

Doesn't make sense

The numbers don't make a lot of sense given the fact that there is a high level of antipathy toward Trump.

But when you consider that Biden looks more senile every day and that his policies have seemed to hurt the country and Americans in multiple ways, it does make some sense that people would take an "anyone but Biden" mentality.

69% of Republican voters isn't enough to get Trump over the finish line, however. He will need the rest of the GOP to come on board along with a majority of independent voters.

In the latest Gallup survey on party affiliation, Republican and Democrat identification was equal at 29% for each party, while 40% said they identified as independent.

This explains why so many elections seem to hinge on the independent vote, and this election will no doubt be the same.

Independent spoilers

A head-to-head matchup isn't likely to be the scenario by November 2024, in any case. A Wall Street Journal poll released earlier in December showed the same four point lead between just Trump and Biden, but had Trump six points ahead when third party candidates were added to the mix.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got 8% in that matchup with other independents between 1-3%. Trump had 37% while Biden had 31%.

But a full 15% were undecided in that poll, which means that anything could still happen when it comes down to actually voting.

Historically, third party candidates haven't gotten more than a few points except for in 1992, when libertarian-leaning Ross Perot stole the race from George H. W. Bush and got us eight years of Bill Clinton.

But it doesn't seem like the independent candidates make much difference in the race this time around, anyway.