Donald Trump leads the GOP field in Pennsylvania, but only John Kasich would defeat Hillary Clinton in a general election match-up, according to a new poll.
A Quinnipiac University survey of Pennsylvania released Wednesday found Trump taking 39 percent, followed by Ted Cruz at 30 percent, and Kasich finishing a distant third place at 24 percent.
{mosads}There are 71 delegates up for grabs in Pennsylvania’s GOP primary on April 26, but 54 will remain unbound going to the convention in Cleveland, so a victory by Trump won’t move him that much closer to the nomination.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has only a small lead – 50 to 44 over Bernie Sanders in the state.
That’s at odds with the only other recent poll – a Harper Polling survey released this week – that found Clinton ahead by 22 in the key battleground state.
While Kasich is in last place in the GOP primary, he does best by far in a one-on-one match-up with Clinton in Pennsylvania.
Kasich crushes Clinton 51 to 35, while Cruz is knotted in a tie with the Democratic front-runner and Trump falls short 45 to 42.
“Can you be mired in third place among Pennsylvania Republicans and still be your party’s best bet come Election Day?” asked Quinnipiac polling director Tim Malloy. “Welcome to Gov. John Kasich’s world, where the big prize is tantalizingly close, but blocked by two candidates with the same goal.” he said in a statement accompanying the poll’s release.
Sanders would beat Trump and Cruz by 8 points each, but fall to Kasich 46 to 40 in a head-to-head match-up in the state.
The Vermont senator needs to make up ground among women voters if he’s going to catch Clinton there.
Clinton leads Sanders 56 to 38 among women, while he leads her 53 to 40 among men.
As has been the case in most of the contests so far, Sanders has a big lead among young voters and those who describe themselves as “very liberal,” while Clinton runs up the score on older and more moderate voters.
On the Republican side, Trump has a double-digit lead among men, and perhaps surprisingly, has a small lead over Cruz and Kasich among women.
The Quinnipiac University survey of 1,737 Pennsylvania voters was conducted between March 30 and April 4 and has a 2.4 percentage point margin of error. The survey includes 578 likely Republican primary voters with a 4.1 percentage point margin of error, and 514 likely Democratic primary voters with a 4.3 percentage point margin of error.