GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump would not be able to beat leading Democrat Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head match-up, Republican political consultant Mike Murphy said Wednesday.
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Trump won solidly in winner-take-all Arizona, but Ted Cruz had an even larger win in Utah – with more than 50 percent of the vote, he takes all of the delegates there. The poll has a margin of error of 3.8 points for Republicans and 3.9 percent for Democrats. Voters aged 45 and older skewed heavily for Clinton at 63 percent, while the same percentage of voters below age 45 said they support Sanders.
The poll shows that Clinton, too, has high unfavorable ratings – from 54% of those surveyed – but it’s still well under Trump’s mark.
The PPIC poll showed an increase in support for Trump when compared with a poll by the Field Research Corporation in January.
Trump leads the delegate race for the Republican presidential nomination, boasting 739 delegates to Cruz’s 465 and Kasich’s 143. Asked whether Trump or Clinton is better described as “a person you admire”, Clinton has a 15-point lead over Trump, yet almost one-quarter of voters say they admire neither candidate.
Bernie Sanders won landslides in the Utah and Idaho caucuses; Clinton’s solid win in the Arizona primary wasn’t enough, this time, to give her a delegate victory on the day.
Meanwhile, with Kasich being the race’s remaining “establishment” GOP candidate, he benefits by winning over those who are moderate and have both Democratic and Republican leanings.
In a hypothetical three-way race between Clinton, Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson, Clinton would win with 42 percent of the vote, Trump would get 34 percent and Johnson would receive 11 percent.
But Lincoln’s convention leaders, as the new PBS series on presidential elections notes, made more promises to state GOP delegation bosses than did Seward’s – including promises of cabinet posts.
Cruz said he was honored to earn Bush’s support and acknowledged the former candidate’s track record as Florida’s governor.
Both of the two front-runners – Clinton and Trump – are viewed unfavorably by a majority of registered voters nationwide, with 57 percent having a negative take on Clinton and 65 percent on Trump.
If Cruz were to pull out of the race, this is the group that most dramatically moves to Trump’s corner with 71 percent supporting the billionaire and just 18 percent selecting Kasich. John Kasich can’t do it. The math won’t work. Mr. Trump does best against Mr. Kasich in blue-collar areas like the southwest (46 percent to 30 percent) and northeast (40 percent to 25 percent) while Mr. Kasich does best in the southeast (37 percent to 26 percent).
Yet Trump’s statewide lead, if it holds, would guarantee him only 13 of the state’s 172 Republican delegates.
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“A vote for Kasich actually helps Trump by dividing the opposition”.
