Donald Trump drew a few rare boos toward the end of his appearance at Thursday’s Republican Jewish Coalition candidate forum, after refusing to say that Jerusalem should be the undivided and recognized capital of Israel.
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Numerous other polls recently have also shown Trump as reclaiming a healthy lead on top of the GOP field after having been at par with Carson for several weeks.
Carson (down 8 points since October), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (down 5 points to 3%) and Kentucky Sen.
Trump picked up nine points from the CNN/ORC poll conducted in mid-October, while Carson dropped nine points and Rubio gained four points.
But even in the face of more evidence of Trump’s endurance — and grudging recognition that a Trump victory is no longer outside the realm of possibility — many establishment Republicans still insist that ultimately, the businessman is unlikely to clinch the nomination.
Fifty-two percent of voters said they think Trump is the best candidate to win the general election, while 15 percent believe Rubio would be the best candidate, 11 percent said Cruz and 10 percent believe Carson would do the best in the general election.
In particular, Trump is a runaway choice of GOP voters surveyed who do not have college degrees, his support rising above 40 percent. Ted Cruz, R-Texas is at 16 percent.
According to CNN, Trump’s 20-point lead is the largest he’s had in any national live-interviewer telephone poll since he announced he was running for president.
The poll was taken after the Paris terrorist attacks but before the assassinations in San Bernadino, Calif. It showed that 64 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents feel that the ex-Secretary of State is best equipped to handle foreign policy, with more than 70 percent saying she would do the best job in confronting terrorism and the Islamic State.
The poll also reflects the dominance Trump enjoys over others in the field on issues that voters deem to be of uppermost importance to them.
More generally, about 4 in 10 Republicans surveyed said Trump is the most effective candidate to solve the problems of the United States, according to CNN.
All other candidates have the support of less than 5 per cent of Republican voters.
“The world is complicated; the Middle East is even more complicated”, he said at one point.
When you examine the poll, which was taken from November 27 through December 1, 2015 (which was a holiday weekend and is problematical all by itself in terms of who the respondents were), it is clear that the pollsters chose to ask five questions on the topic of illegal immigration prior to asking about the Republican nomination horserace.
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Pressed to explain his comments in an interview with The Associated Press in which Trump said “I have a real question as to whether or not both sides want to make” a deal, the Republican front-runner refused to back down while speaking to the influential Republican Jewish Coalition – a staunch Israeli ally. “This is exactly why Trump is what I like to call a brilliant idiot”.
