Real-estate mogul Donald Trump leads the nearest contender for the Republican presidential nomination by 18 percentage points, according to an Ipsos/Reuters national poll released Thursday.
The poll showed support for Trump at 35 percent, distantly followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at 17 percent and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at 16 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) polled at 10 percent and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 9 percent.
Rubio and Cruz have been locked in a months-long duel for second place, although virtually no polling has shown either one approaching Trump’s level of support. The advantage Rubio holds in this poll also may prove illusory if he is unable to convert his second-place standing nationally into a lead in any state, including his own home state of Florida.
TPM’s PollTracker Average shows Trump leading at 41.8 percent, followed by Rubio at 18.3 percent and Cruz at 16.3 percent.
The Ipsos/Reuters poll was carried out from Feb. 27-March 2. Pollsters surveyed 762 registered voters online with a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.
Correction: The original version of this post incorrectly described the respondents as “likely voters” instead of as “registered voters.” It also reported the results from a subset of those surveyed, rather than from the full sample. Those numbers have now been corrected. We regret the errors.
I wonder what his lead will be after the Mitt Bump?
The most accurate poll of Trump’s popularity among Republicans was the election results. Look at percentage of Republicans that Trump received in the 11 states. The mean percentage was between 34 and 35. The median was 34%. This is exactly where the old Ceiling/Floor was thought to be. Another clue to the problem of polling in this cycle is show in these data. The variation is huge from state to state (21%-49%). This is a night-mare for getting a representative sample of “all” Republicans. I think both Trump’s people and Romney’s are looking at these results and acting accordingly.