With Iowa ready to head to the polls on Monday, Donald Trump has a clear lead among Republican voters in the all-important first balloting of the 2016 election season.
The billionaire is at 31 percent in a new poll from Public Policy Polling, with Ted Cruz in second place at 23 percent.
Marco Rubio is a distant third at 14 percent, with Ben Carson at 9 percent.
Remember Jeb Bush? He’s way, way back at 4 percent, tied with Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul.
The last PPP poll, from early January, had Trump at 28 and Cruz at 26, so Trump is trending up, and Cruz down.
Net favorability is an issue for Cruz – who was at 69 percent favorable/18 percent unfavorable in the early January poll, and is at 56/35 now. Credit Trump’s birther sucker punch with sowing those seeds: only 32 percent of Iowa GOP voters think a candidate born in another country should be allowed to serve as president.
One positive note for Cruz, and probably only Cruz: 31 percent of likely caucus voters concede that they may change their minds on who they will vote for between now and Monday.
Rubio leads among the wishy-washy – 35 percent of voters backing a candidate in the single-digits would vote for Rubio if forced to choose, to 25 percent for Cruz and 17 percent for Trump.
Cruz would benefit from voters who see the race as a two-candidate affair between Cruz and Trump. Of the electorate currently supporting an also-ran in the single digits, Cruz leads Trump, 50-21, so he has that going for him, which is nice.
Of the firmly committed, Trump has the advantage – 80 percent of the Trumpeters consider themselves entrenched, to 71 percent of the Cruzers, and 65 percent of the Rubios.
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AFP
