Both of the remaining Democratic candidates for president easily top Republican front-runner Donald Trump in hypothetical general election match-ups, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll. But Hillary Clinton, who is well ahead in the Democratic race for the presidency, would likely face a stronger challenge should Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz capture the Republican nomination for president. In the scenario that appears most likely to emerge from the primary contests, Clinton tops Trump 52% to 44% among registered voters. That result has tilted in Clinton’s favor since the last CNN/ORC Poll on the match-up in January. But when the former secretary of state faces off with either of the other two top Republicans, things are much tighter and roughly the same as they were in January. Clinton trails against Rubio, with 50% choosing the Florida senator compared to 47% for Clinton, identical to the results in January. Against Cruz, Clinton holds 48% to his 49%, a slight tightening from a 3-point race in January to a 1-point match-up now.
The poll finds that an 60 percent of all American voters have an unfavorable view of Trump, while 37 percent have a favorable view. Those numbers are reversed among Republican voters only: 65 percent of GOP voters have a favorable view of Trump, while 35 percent have an unfavorable view.
Trump’s numbers are especially poor with voters earning less than $50,000: He trails Clinton by 13 points (41 percent to 54 percent) among this cohort and trails Clinton by 5 points among voters who earn more than $50,000. Rubio and Clinton are tied at 48 percent among those earning less than $50,000; Rubio leads Clinton by 6 points among those earning more.
Rubio performs better than Trump among both white and non-white voters. Trump gets 57 percent of white voters in a match-up with Clinton and 15 percent of non-white voters, while Rubio gets the support of 61 percent of white voters, and 27 percent of non-white voters.
You can read the full poll results here.
