Celebrity billionaire Donald Trump has a narrow lead over Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) among Republicans nationwide, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday.
The poll showed support for Trump at 30 percent, followed by Cruz at 27 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) surged into third place at 22 percent, narrowly beating out Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at 20 percent.
This suggests reversals at both the top and bottom ends of the race since the previous NBC/WSJ poll, which showed Cruz beating Trump at 28 percent to 26 percent, while Rubio stood at 17 percent and Kasich at 11 percent.
In both cases, the findings of the NBC/WSJ poll are not echoed by other contemporaneous polls. Most nationwide polling of the Republican contest in the last few weeks has shown Trump maintaining a substantial lead over the rest of the field.
TPM’s PollTracker Average shows Trump at 36.3 percent, Cruz at 22.9 percent, Rubio at 17.5 percent and Kasich at 12.8 percent.
The NBC/WSJ poll was carried out from March 3-6 by live telephone interview. Pollsters surveyed 397 people likely to vote in the Republican primary, with a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.
