Donald Trump Has A Clear Path To Win The GOP Nomination

Businessman Donald Trump leads in the GOP race for president, according to the last CBS News poll, CBS News reports. Trump leads in that national poll with 24 percent among Republicans, while Jeb Bush has 13 percent and Scott Walker has 10 percent. Additionally, Trump leads in the Real Clear Politics (RCP) average of polls for the national GOP race by a 23.2 percent to 12.8 percent margin over Jeb Bush.

Breitbart News reports that Trump not only leads in the RCP average of national GOP polls, but that he also leads in polls of Republican voters in the first four states to vote — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. This demonstrates that Trump’s dominance in the national polls is beginning to translate into solid support in the polls in some of the key states where the race for the GOP nomination will be decided.

Trump has been surging in the polls for weeks, as the Inquisitr reported last month, and many pundits still don’t understand why. As Trump continues to consolidate his support in the polls, it becomes more apparent that he has a clear path to win the GOP nomination for president if his polling numbers translate into actual voters in primaries and caucuses. Here is how the polls show Trump could win the nomination.

A Gravis Marketing poll released a few days ago shows Trump leading in Iowa with 30.9 percent, while Scott Walker has 15.4 percent. Two other recent polls show Walker leading in Iowa, including the NBC/Marist poll in which Walker leads 19 to 17 percent over Trump, and the Monmouth poll where Walker leads over Trump by a 22 to 13 percent margin. Scott Walker may still have the much stronger ground game in Iowa and win the caucuses while Donald Trump comes in second place. But that second place finish could give Trump some momentum going into New Hampshire where he may already lead at that point.

Trump is ahead of Jeb Bush in New Hampshire, the Tampa Bay Times reports, based on a new WMUR Granite State poll. Trump leads with 24 percent in the WMUR poll, while Jeb Bush has support of 12 percent and Scott Walker garners 11 percent. Trump also leads in two other recent polls of New Hampshire while leading by more than 10 percent in the RCP average of polls for New Hampshire. If Trump can translate this level of support to real votes in the New Hampshire primary, he could easily win the state. A win in New Hampshire would give Trump strong momentum in South Carolina and many other states. It would also signal that Republican voters are rejecting traditional politicians in favor of the non-politician, Donald Trump.

South Carolina Republicans, recently polled by Gravis Marketing, support Trump by 34 percent to several candidates, including Dr. Ben Carson and Jeb Bush at 11 percent and Scott Walker at 10 percent. If Trump wins New Hampshire, he has a great chance of winning South Carolina. Winning New Hampshire and South Carolina would likely put Trump well on the path to winning the GOP nomination.

Trump enjoys the support of 26 percent of Republicans in Florida, StPetePolls.org reports from their latest survey in the state. Jeb Bush is at 20 percent in that poll, while Walker gets 12 percent, and Marco Rubio about 10 percent. Winning Florida would not only continue Trump’s momentum, but it would likely end the presidential ambitions of Bush and Rubio, making it a two-way race between Trump and Walker at that point.

“The most important poll released recently, though, is a Monmouth University national poll which has Trump’s favor ability rating at 52% with Republican voters. Only Rubio’s favorable rating is higher (54%). Trump’s number ties him up with Bush and Cruz, and puts him ahead of the rest of the pack,” Breitbart News reported.

Much has been made about Trump’s negative numbers overall, and his weak polling in hypothetical polls match him against the possible Democratic nominees for general election. But as more voters hear his message, he might gain more support and see his negative ratings decrease. If the public perception of Trump is defined more by what he communicates to voters than what an alleged biased media communicates about him, he might well be able to win the GOP nomination and possibly the presidency itself. Ronald Reagan was once viewed as being just as un-electable as some see Donald Trump.

[Photo of Donald Trump by Christopher Gregory for Getty Images]