The leading Republican presidential candidate in donor and establishment support is down to just four percent of the vote in a new national poll. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, is in a far fifth place in the latest Quinnipiac poll, getting four percent and trailing Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump.
Trump, the businessman from New York, remains in the lead at 24 percent support among Republicans but Carson, the retired neurosurgeon from Baltimore, is statistically tied with him at 23 percent. And in hypothetical general-election contests, Carson has a large lead on the leading Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, 50 percent to 40 percent. Much of that comes from Carson’s support from women voters, who prefer him to Clinton, 45 percent to 44 percent. Trump, on the other hand, is the only Republican to lose to Clinton, 43 percent to 46 percent.
In a close third and fourth place are senators Rubio and Cruz from Florida and Texas, respectively. Rubio has 14 percent support, while Cruz has 13 percent, with both men coming off strong debate performances last week in Colorado. Bush at four percent leads the rest of the pack in the single digits, with Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, and John Kasich getting three percent each, Rand Paul getting two percent, and Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum with one percent each.
Among all the candidates and with voters overall, Bush has the highest unfavorability rating at 58 percent, rivaled only by Trump at 56 percent and Clinton at 52 percent. Bush also has the worst net favorability rating at negative 33 points (higher favorability ratings help Trump and Clinton in this measure). Bush does slightly better with Republicans on favorability, but not much; he’s at negative 3 points, with 47 percent of Republicans having an unfavorable view of the brother of one previous GOP president and the son of another.
With voters overall, Carson has the highest favorability rating at 49 percent, as well as the highest net favorability rating at 24 points. Behind him in this are Rubio at 14 points and Fiorina at 10 points. Carson maintains this lead with GOP voters, having a 76-point net favorability rating and 82 percent viewing him favorably, followed by Rubio at net 61 points, Cruz at net 59 points, and Fiorina at net 56 points.
