Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are neck-and-neck in a new Quinnipiac University survey of Iowan voters.
Trump leads Cruz by two percentage points, 31-29, which falls within the poll’s four percentage point margin of error. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio finished third with the support of 15 percent of those surveyed, followed by Ben Carson at 7 percent and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 4 percent.
“The Iowa Republican caucuses are tight as a tick entering the final two weeks of the campaign. Voters like Sen. Ted Cruz better than Donald Trump and give him much higher scores for honesty, empathy, experience and for sharing their values,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, in a statement. “But they see the New York businessman as better able to handle some key issues. Trump is way ahead on handling the economy and terrorism.”
Brown also said that Cruz’s ceiling with GOP voters may be higher than Trump’s, as 26 percent of Republican respondents said they would never vote for Trump while 7 percent said the same about Cruz. A greater percentage of Iowan Republicans thought Cruz had a good chance of winning the general election than Trump.
Cruz and Trump each gained six percentage points since Quinnipiac’s November 2015 poll, while Carson dropped 11 percentage points during the same time frame.
The January poll surveyed 602 likely Iowan GOP voters from January 5-10 by landline telephones and cellphones.
