Businessman Donald Trump was back on top of the Republican presidential contest according to a national poll released Monday by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The survey, conducted by YouGov America under the direction of the UMass Poll, found that Trump polled at 31 percent among likely GOP primary voters compared to retired surgeon Ben Carson’s 22 percent. The closest opponent of the battling frontrunners was Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at 13 percent while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) polled at 9 percent.
When asked who their second choice for the Republican nomination would be, respondents who supported Trump chose Carson and vice versa. Trump and Carson also were the overwhelming choices for the candidates who have the best chance at winning at 40 and 24 percent, respectively, according to the survey.
YouGov’s polling uses a pre-selected pool of registered voters, with respondents selected at random from that pool. The margin of error was 6.4 percentage points among likely Republican primary voters.
