Two new national polls released this week indicate that Trump is continuing to consolidate his status as the unambiguous front runner as we head into the fall.
On Tuesday, One America News released a survey conducted by Gravis Marketing showing Trump with an incredible 40 percent of support from registered voters nationwide (though OAN’s release did not specify whether the voters were registered Republican or not). According to this polling, Trump holds a staggering 27 point lead over his nearest competitor, Dr. Ben Carson, who pulled 13 percent. Jeb Bush (10 percent), Ted Cruz (7 percent), and Carly Fiorina (5 percent) rounded out the top five.
While OAN’s poll would appear to be an outlier, given that no other major pollsters have shown Trump above even 30 percent nationally, it is not the only recent survey to show Trump continuing to hold a significant lead in the GOP race. In a Quinnipiac national poll released today, the Donald leads the Republican field with 28 percent support, followed distantly by Ben Carson at 12 percent and Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, each with 7 percent.
Although this is all very good news for the Trump campaign, there are still cautionary notes to be found. The Quinnipiac poll includes favorability numbers, allowing us to apply the Frank Cannon metric. According to this measure, Trump is still seriously behind all of his closest competitors:
- Marco Rubio: +69 favorability, 25% unsure
- Ben Carson: +56 favorability, 32% unsure
- Mike Huckabee: +49 favorability, 20% unsure
- Scott Walker: +47 favorability, 43% unsure
- Jeb Bush: +42 favorability, 24% unsure
- Carly Fiorina: +41 favorability, 44% unsure
- Ted Cruz: +41 favorability, 33% unsure
- John Kasich: +31 favorability, 58% unsure
- Bobby Jindal: +31 favorability, 59% unsure
- Rick Perry: +29 favorability, 38% unsure
- Donald Trump: +29 favorability, 9% unsure
- Rick Santorum: +18 favorability, 41% unsure
- Chris Christie: +7 favorability, 28% unsure
- Rand Paul: +0 favorability, 29% unsure
- George Pataki: -2 favorability, 66% unsure
- Jim Gilmore: -5 favorability, 82% unsure
- Lindsey Graham: -5 favorability, 47% unsure
While Trump has increased his favorability about 20 points from a month ago, he still has much ground to cover before he could be considered among the top tier of the most favorable Republican candidates. And with only 9 percent unsure about how they feel about him, and a survey-high 26 percent of respondents saying they would definitely not vote for him, it appears Trump may be close to his ceiling in terms of support.
With so many other GOP candidates splitting up the rest of the vote, however, Trump’s current level of support may be enough—if he can hold onto it.
Paul Dupont is a legislative assistant for American Principles in Action.
