Donald Trump remains the clear Republican front-runner across the nation, and is defying the predictions of pundits again by gaining steam less than two months before the Iowa caucuses, according to a new poll.
Quinnipiac University’s latest survey of Republican voters finds the billionaire businessman has risen 3 percentage points since early November and now stands at 27 percent.
Trump’s bump comes after GOP strategists and members of the media speculated that his widely-disputed claim that “thousands” of Muslim-Americans celebrated the Sept. 11 attacks could create trouble for him in the polls, particularly with fellow Republican contenders Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio on rising swiftly.
“It doesn’t seem to matter what he says or who he offends, whether the facts are contested or the ‘political correctness’ is challenged, Donald Trump seems to be wearing Kevlar,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement Wednesday.
Rubio, Florida’s freshman senator who appeals to both the conservative and establishment crowd, has moved into second place behind Trump at 17 percent. He is trailed closely by Cruz, the anti-establishment firebrand from Texas, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who each got 16 percent.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who entered the GOP field in mid-June as the candidate to beat, remains in the single digits with just 5 percent. No other candidate in the Republican field secured more than 3 percent, and 8 percent of GOP voters still remain undecided.
Despite maintaining a strong lead over his rivals, Trump is still widely unpopular among a significant portion of voters. Fifty-nine percent of U.S. voters say the real estate magnate is dishonest and untrustworthy, and 26 percent of right-leaning respondents indicated they “would definitely not support” Trump.
Furthermore, a greater percentage of voters (60-36 percent) believe presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would come out on top in a general election matchup against Trump.
The survey of 1,453 registered voters, including 672 Republicans, was conducted between Nov. 23-30. Overall results contain a margin of error plus or minus 2.6 percent.
