Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump enters the final stretch before Super Tuesday with a commanding national lead over his remaining four opponents, according to an NBC News/Survey Monkey poll released Friday.
At 39 percent support, Trump carries an 18-point lead over his next-closest competitor, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who pummeled the billionaire in Thursday’s GOP debate. In the last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, taken before the South Carolina primary or Nevada Republican caucuses, Rubio trailed both Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Back-to-back third-place finishes, however, have put the Texas senator three percentage points behind Rubio (21 percent) at 19 percent support.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Ohio Gov. John Kasich draw 8 percent each, giving more fuel to anti-Trump conservatives who’ve expressly called on the two candidates to end their campaigns so as to free up support for Rubio or Cruz, who are best positioned to challenge the billionaire one-on-one.
The same survey shows that Trump, who frequently claims his supporters are the most “loyal” of any candidate’s, has put forward policies that are controversial to some, but widely popular among those planning to vote for him.
For example, 87 percent of Trump’s supporters are in favor of his plan to temporarily bar all non-American Muslims from entering the U.S. and 55 percent believe illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. should be deported back to their country of origin. Among all voters, only 47 percent and 29 percent, respectively, support those policies.
Another 67 percent of Trump’s supporters indicated they harbor unfavorable views of American Muslims, compared to 35 percent of all voters, and 45 percent described themselves as pro-choice. The latter figure suggests that perhaps Cruz’s recent attacks against Trump’s previous support of partial-birth abortion or a statement he made in the 1990s where he called himself “very pro-choice” has helped the billionaire attract Republicans in favor of abortion rights.
Additionally, half of Trump’s voters want to raise the federal minimum wage to $10 or $15 hour while 72 percent of all voters support such an increase. Trump has previously said wages in America are “too low,” but he insists “we have to leave [the minimum wage] the way it is.”
Trump plans to visit seven of the 12 Super Tuesday day states over the weekend and announced the endorsement of New Jersey governor and recent 2016 dropout Chris Christie on Friday. He currently leads a handful of state-level polls in Southern states and is expected to do well in many of the March 1 nominating contests. A big win in Texas, which has 155 delegates at stake, or in a combination of other Super Tuesday states could make it next to impossible for another candidate to secure the nomination without forcing the GOP into a brokered convention.
The NBC News/Survey Monkey survey of 6,433 registered U.S. voters, including 1,007 who said they support Trump, was conducted between Feb. 24-25. Results contain a margin of error plus or minus 1.9 percent.
