Ted Cruz, who holds second place with 22 percent.
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Meanwhile, the poll found that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton maintains her lead with more than 18 points in SC with a clear advantage within the Black community in the state.
Behind the numbers: Dovetailing with the results in Iowa and New Hampshire, the poll finds a wide age gap between the two candidates’ supporters. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen.
Trump is also widely seen as most likely to change the way things work in Washington (64 percent say he’s best on that measure), and as the candidate with the best chance of winning in November (56 percent say Trump has the best shot). In a national Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday, Clinton led Sanders 55% to % among nonwhites, far outpacing her % to 42% edge overall.
When asked who would do more to help the middle class, Sanders narrowly tops Clinton among all likely caucusgoers, 50 percent to 47 percent. “Like a freight train barreling through signals with his horn on full blast, Trump heads down the track towards a possible nomination”, said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. The only close issue is social issues, and Trump even leads that category, 28% to 21% for Cruz and 20% for Rubio – bearing in mind the MoE issues, of course. White voters break in Sanders’ favor, 54 percent for the Vermont senator to 40 percent for the former secretary of state, while men are about evenly divided between the two, 49 percent Clinton to 45 percent Sanders. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 6% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Dr. Ben Carson are both at 4% each.
Also, 33 percent of Trump voters in SC think the practice of Islam should be illegal in the United States. Both groups made up a majority of voters in the 2008 primary there.
Wednesday’s poll comes as the candidates are gearing up for Saturday’s Republican primary in SC, which is the first primary of the 2016 election cycle in the South.
The poll was conducted from February 10-15 by live interviewers on land lines and cell phones.
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The Republican side of the poll included 602 likely and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points. The survey included 1,342 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points.
