INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Donald Trump Dominates Republican Race By 27 Points, Nomination In Sight

By Val Powell
Published on: 20:16 PST, Dec 14, 2015

Trump has topped 40 percent support among Grand Old Party (GOP) voters, according to a national poll.

The 69-year-old businessman and TV personality received the support of 41 percent of nationally surveyed Republican supporters in a recent poll that was conducted by Monmouth University.

Trump’s numbers improved his chances to become the Republican Party’s candidate for the presidential elections next year. In the national poll, he is 27 percentage points ahead of his closest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, with his 14 percent GOP voter support.

Other Republican presidential candidates who made it in the top four include Florida Sen. Marco Rubio with 10 percent, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson with six percent. Other candidates had less than three percent of voters.

Trump’s continued rise in the national polls has defied common belief that his popularity in the GOP polls has already reached its peak. Since the last time Monmouth University polled voters nationwide, Trump has increased his support by 13 percent. Trump’s favorability among voters has also increased, 61 percent favorable against 29 percent unfavorable. Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute said in a statement that, while Trump’s voters lean toward the lower educational level, the voter blocs where he draws his support are not easy to categorize.

Monmouth U Polling Institute Director Patrick Murray Explains “Peak” of Donald Trump’s Popularity

But in spite of Trump’s success in amassing support from Republican voters, the report said that more than half of them (55 percent) still believe that the outspoken businessman does not have the temperament to become president. Meanwhile, 53 percent of the voters said that they would be “dissatisfied” or “upset” if Donald Trump wins the nomination.

CNN also conducted its own “Poll of Polls” to get the average numbers of all candidates based on polls that have been released in the past few days. The results showed that Donald Trump still leads the Republican candidates with 33 percent of the votes, while Cruz only had 17 percent. Rubio and Carson had 12 and 11 percent of the GOP votes, respectively. The CNN poll also said that there was one particular state, Iowa, where the battle between Trump and Cruz is tight, with Cruz leading 27 to 25 percent over Trump.

Donald Trump will reportedly benefit from the higher turnout of participants that usually do not take part in the caucus process. This is exactly what happened in 2008 when Pres. Barack Obama won the nomination on the Democratic side against Hillary Clinton. Younger voters, and voters with African-American origin took part in the primaries, which announced Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate.

Another report said that if Trump or Cruz becomes the Republican candidate, Clinton would most likely defeat them if she were to win the Democratic nomination.

Clinton reportedly has higher support from independent voters than Trump and Cruz, according to a Wall Street Journal-NBC poll.

The poll showed that Clinton would lead Trump 50 to 40 percent. She would get 43 percent of independent voters, while Trump would only get 36 percent. The former Secretary of State would also win against Cruz if he were to be the Republican candidate, 48 percent against 45 percent.

However, the poll showed that individual voters would support Marco Rubio instead of Clinton in a head-to-head battle, 48 percent against 45 percent. Carson, whose ratings have been constantly dipping in recent weeks, would win among independents with 48 percent of the votes, while Clinton would only get 34.

Donald Trump and his eight GOP co-candidates will soon face each other in the GOP’s final primary debate for 2015. The debate will air on Tuesday night, 8:30 E.T. on CNN.

[Image by Justin Sullivan, Getty Images]

Share this article: Donald Trump Dominates Republican Race By 27 Points, Nomination In Sight
Donald Trump
More from Inquisitr