Cruz statistically even with Trump in head-to-head poll
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to lead the GOP field in a three-way race, but his headway evaporates in a head-to-head match-up against GOP rival Ted Cruz, according to a new national poll released Tuesday.
The left-leaning Public Policy Polling survey found that in a three-way race, Trump receives support from 42 percent of GOP primary voters, Cruz gets 32 percent and John Kasich gets 22 percent.
{mosads}But in a head-to-head race, Trump receives 46 percent to Cruz’s 44 percent, within the survey’s margin of error.
The poll found that 51 percent of Kasich supporters would flip to Cruz and 23 percent would instead support Trump.
“The Republican race nationally would be a toss up if it was just Trump and Cruz,” Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in a statement.
“But as long as Kasich stays in there splitting the anti-Trump vote, Trump continues to be in a good position.”
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has 54 percent support among primary voters and Bernie Sanders has 36 percent.
The survey also found that 84 percent are committed to voting for Clinton compared with 61 percent for Sanders.
The survey also found that a majority of Republican primary voters — 58 percent — are comfortable with Trump winning the GOP nomination. He leads both Cruz and Kasich on that question.
Trump also has the highest favorability rating of the GOP hopefuls, with 51 percent favorable to 40 percent unfavorable.
Most GOP primary voters would not be comfortable with a nominee who isn’t currently running for president, the poll found.
Forty-two percent say they’d be comfortable with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as nominee, and only 28 percent said they’d be comfortable with 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
The poll was conducted March 24–26 and surveyed 505 GOP primary voters and 422 Democratic primary voters via phone and online.
The margin of error was 4.4 percentage points among GOP voters and 4.8 percentage points among Democratic voters.
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