Donald Trump has hit a new high in the race for the Republican nomination, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll, with more than 4-in-10 Republican voters nationwide now saying they back the billionaire.
And more than two-thirds of Republicans say he's the candidate most likely to capture their party's presidential nomination.
Trump
has topped the 40% mark for the first time in CNN/ORC polling, standing
at 41%. That more than doubles the support of his nearest competitor,
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who notches 19% support in the poll. No other
candidate hit double-digits. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio landed at 8%,
retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 6%, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at
5%, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 4%, and the rest at 3% or less.
Despite
the new high-mark for Trump, the GOP race remains fairly stable
compared with where it was in the most recent CNN/ORC poll in late
December.
In that poll, Trump stood at
39%, Cruz at 18% and Rubio at 10%. Carson's 4-point dip, from 10% to
6%, between the two surveys is the largest change in the field, and it
is not large enough to be a statistically significant change given the
new poll's 5-point margin of sampling error.
Trump's
lead is clearly significant, however, and the poll finds him well ahead
of the field among a range of GOP subgroups. He leads among both men
and women, younger and older voters, white evangelicals, conservatives
and both self-identified Republicans and independents who lean toward
the party.
There are two subgroups
where Trump's lead is less dominant: college graduates and tea party
supporters. Even among those groups, however, he remains at the head of
the pack. Among those holding degrees, 26% back Trump, 20% Cruz, and tea
party supporters split 37% for Trump, 34% for Cruz.
Trump's
supporters are more likely than those backing other candidates to say
that they've definitely made up their mind (70% of Trump's supporters
say they are locked in compared with 40% who back other candidates).
And
the prospect of a Trump candidacy generates more enthusiasm overall
(40% of Republican voters say they would be enthusiastic about a Trump
nomination) than the possibility of Cruz (25% enthusiastic) or Rubio
(18% enthusiastic) at the head of the ticket.
Trump's dominance continues when voters assess which of the GOP candidates would best handle top issues.
Trump
holds his widest advantage on handling the economy: 60% of GOP voters
say Trump would best handle it, a 48-point lead over Ted Cruz. Likewise,
Trump has a 55% to 16% edge on handling illegal immigration.
His
margin is smaller, though still significant, on handling foreign
policy. Republican voters in the poll rated terrorism their most
important issue in considering a candidate for president: 49% called it
"extremely important," outpacing the share calling the economy,
government spending or illegal immigration as central to their vote.
Trump
has gained ground over the course of the campaign on the values issues
that are often meaningful among Republican primary voters.
The
share who say Trump would do the best job on social issues has grown
from 15% in September to 28%. Cruz trails Trump by just 4 points on that
matter.
And about one-third of
Republicans say they think Trump is the candidate who "best represents
the values of Republicans like yourself," 34% choose Trump, 9 points
ahead of Cruz at 25%. No other candidate hits double-digits on that
measure.
Trump's case for the
presidency rests at least in part on his standing as a political
outsider. The poll finds that a broad swath of GOP voters (55%) say they
feel completely unrepresented by the government in Washington, and
among those voters, Trump holds a 47% to 19% lead over Cruz.
The
poll also finds Trump is widely seen as the candidate best able to win
in November: 63% of Republicans say so, compared with 16% who see Cruz
as best positioned to win and 10% who name Rubio.
But
in hypothetical general election, Trump appears to fare slightly worse
than either Cruz or Rubio when matched up against either Hillary Clinton
or Bernie Sanders. All six match-ups are close, with no one candidate
leading another outside the margin of error of 3.5 percentage points for
registered voters. But Rubio and Cruz each hit 50% support when matched
against Clinton, while Trump stalls at 47%.
Rubio
and Sanders produce a near-even split, 49% Sanders to 48% Rubio, while
the Democratic senator hits 50% against either Trump or Cruz.
Overall,
a majority of registered voters (56%) now say they think Trump will win
his party's nomination for president, and that rises to 68% among
Republican voters. Last summer, 40% of registered voters said they
thought Bush would top the GOP ticket in 2016 -- now, just 5% say so.
The
CNN/ORC Poll was conducted by telephone January 21-24 among a random
national sample of 1,002 adults. Results for the full sample have a
margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For
results among the 405 registered voters who are Republicans or
independents who lean toward the Republican Party, the margin of
sampling error is plus or minus 5.0 percentage points.
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