Most polls show Hillary Clinton defeating Donald Trump in a presidential contest, but a new survey indicates that in such a matchup, more Democrats may cross party lines than Republicans.
A poll released by Mercury Analytics, a Democrat-run firm with clients including Fox News and MSNBC, found 19 percent of likely Democratic voters said they’d consider bucking their party and vote for Trump, while just 14 percent of GOP voters said they might do the same for Clinton.
The company also found a much higher percentage of Democrats were “100 percent sure” of voting for Trump than Republicans considering voting for Clinton.
Mercury carried out the poll over the last week in order to gauge the effect of Trump’s first television ad this week. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
“The challenge to Hillary, if Trump is the nominee and pivots to the center in the general election as a problem-solving, independent-minded, successful ‘get it done’ businessman, is that Democrats will no longer be able to count on his personality and outrageous sound bites to disqualify him in the voters’ minds,” said Mercury CEO Ron Howard in a statement.
Trump has continued to lead in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, prompting increasing fears among Republican party leaders that he might grab the nomination over more conventional candidates they’d prefer, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Trump is currently second on the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings.
