Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is leading the Republican presidential race in Virginia, but real estate mogul Donald Trump is not far behind, according a poll released Thursday.
The survey by Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling found 18 percent of Republican primary voters chose Bush as the candidate they would favor while Trump and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker were tied with 14 percent each.
The PPP poll followed two national polls that have placed Trump at the top of a crowded Republican field.
The rest of the top 10 candidates in the poll were former pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson with 10 percent, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 8 percent, Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) with 7 percent and four candidates tied at 5 percent each — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Ted Cruz (TX), Sen. Rand Paul (KY), and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Florina.
Virginia Democrats clearly favored former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she polled at 64 percent. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is also running in the Democratic primary, polled at 14 percent.
The poll was conducted from 1,170 registered voters, 502 of whom were Republican primary voters, from July 13 to 15. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.9 percent and for Republicans it was plus or minus 4.4 percent. The poll was conducted by landline, except for 20 percent who completed the survey online.
So, according to this poll, John Ellis Bush is the frontrunner in Virginia.
TPM, how do you justify this headline without any comparison to previous polling in Virginia?
Of for fuck’s sake Caitlin Cruz. PPP is not “Democratic leaning”. It is affiliated with Democratic groups but does not have a bias for Democrats, and is actually one of the more accurate polling outfits around (check out Nate Silver’s run down in you need to) and actually has a R +0.7 “lean”. So if anything, PPP is Republican leaning.
I expect this kind of shitty reportage at other websites, not here.
And here is a link to the actual poll (since Ms. Cruz deemed it not relevant to include a link to it).
What stood out to me wasn’t Peak Trump, but this:
Dr. Ben Carson > Huckabee, Rubio, Cruz and Paul
Ben Carson is a frickin’ nutjob. Different sort of nutjob from Trump, but still - a true nutjob.