Mitch Perry
A new national poll on the Republican presidential race shows that Donald Trump and Ben Carson continue to dominate the field, and should either of them drop out, the other stands to benefit the most.
The UMass Poll released Monday by the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows Trump leading the field with 31 percent, followed by Carson with 22 percent. Ted Cruz is third with 13 percent, and Marco Rubio is at 9 percent. No other candidate generates more than 5 percent support.
The poll also asked the second-choice preference among respondents, and 36 percent of Trump supporters picked Carson as their secondary choice, while Trump is the second-choice preference among 30 percent of those backing Carson, indicating that if one of those two candidates were to leave the race the other would benefit significantly.
The poll’s results are based on a nationwide online survey of 318 likely Republican primary voters conducted by YouGov America under the direction of the UMass Poll from Nov. 5 to this past Friday.
