Mitch Perry
The last national polls to be released before the first GOP presidential debate of the year takes place on Thursday are are in, and all have the same result: Donald Trump; leads in all four new polls out from CBS News, Fox, Monmouth University and Bloomberg.
The CBS News poll is the latest, coming out at 7 a.m. on Tuesday. It has Trump up with 24 percent. Jeb Bush is next at 13 percent, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is at 10 percent.
Trump, Bush, Walker and Marco Rubio are all viewed more positively than negatively in this poll, but Trump has the highest unfavorable ratings. His ratings among registered voters overall are especially negative.
A Bloomberg Politics poll, released at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, has Trump at 21 percent, Jeb Bush at 10 percent and Scott Walker at 8 percent.
A Fox News Poll, also released at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, has Trump with 26 percent support of self-identified Republican primary voters — up from 18 percent in mid-July and 11 percent a month ago. That’s not only the highest level of support for Trump, but it’s also the highest any GOP candidate has received since the Fox poll began asking the question in December 2013.
Trump’s rise hasn’t hurt Bush, who garners 15 percent and is the only other Republican in double-digits. He was at 14 percent in mid-July and 15 percent in June. Then it’s Scott Walker at 9 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 7 percent, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 6 percent each, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 5 percent a piece, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich get 3 percent each.
If Trump were out of the picture, the Fox News Survey shows Jeb Bush would lead with 20 points, followed by Walker at 13 percent, Carson and Cruz at 9 percent.
Fox News also shows Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race, 51 percent to 22 percent.
And last night a Monmouth University poll was released, and it has Trump leading the pack at 26 percent more than double that of the next best candidate, Jeb Bush, who is 12 percent, and Scott Walker, right behind at 11 percent. The remainder of the “top ten” includes Ted Cruz (6%), Mike Huckabee (6%), Ben Carson (5%), Chris Christie (4%), Rand Paul (4%), Marco Rubio (4%), and John Kasich (3%).
Compared to the Monmouth University Poll released three weeks ago, Trump’s support has increased by 13 points. Walker’s support has increased by 4, while Bush and Cruz have decreased by 3 points. And the survey also finds that GOP voter opinion of Donald Trump continues to improve. It now stands at 52% favorable to 35% unfavorable. It was 40% favorable to 41% unfavorable three weeks ago. Before he announced in June, it stood at a significantly negative 20% favorable to 55% unfavorable.
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from July 30 to August 2, 2015 with 1,203 adults in the United States. This release is based on a sample of 423 registered voters who identify themselves as Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party. This voter sample has a margin of error of +4.8 percent. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.
The Bloomberg Politics National Poll, conducted July 30-Aug. 2 for Bloomberg Politics by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, is based on telephone interviews with 500 U.S. adults who say they are registered Republicans or who say they are registered as no party but lean Republican.
The Fox News Poll is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R). The poll was conducted by telephone with live interviewersJuly 30-August 2, 2015 among a random national sample of 1,306 registered voters. Resultsbased on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The CBS news poll was conducted by telephone July 29-August 2, 2015 among a random sample of 1,252 adults nationwide, including 1047 registered voters. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News by SSRS of Media, PA.. The margin of error for the sample of 408 Republican primary voters is 5 percentage points.
