Poll: Trump Reaches 51 Percent in New Poll, Counting Second Choices

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AP Photo/Steven Senne

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is at 41 percent in the latest national poll by Morning Consult of 2,017 registered voters, and he reached 40 percent primary support among 770 self-identified Republicans.

When only Republicans were asked to identify their second choice in the primary, Trump nudged over 50 percent with a gain of 11 points.

That’s the first primary poll showing him above 50 percent, counting first choice and second choice votes.

Ben Carson scored 14 percent first-choice votes. He also got 18 percent second-choice votes, likely including many Trump supporters.

In contrast, Sen. Marco Rubio’s national support was 5 percent and his GOP support was only 5 percent. But he gained 8 points in second-choice picks, bringing him to 13 percent.

That’s level with Jeb Bush, whose first and second-choice voters totaled 13 percent of the GOP sample. He picked up 18 percent in second-choice votes, likely including many trump supporters.

Carly Fiorina scored just 3 percent in first-choice primary votes.

The Morning Consult poll shows Trump scoring higher than other polls. For example, a CNN poll released Oct. 20 showed Trump at 27 percent, plus Bush and Rubio at just 8 percent each. The Wall Street Journal has Trump at 25 percent.

The cumulative first-choice support for establishment GOP candidates, including Bush and Rubio, is only 19 percent.

The Morning Consult survey polled 2,017 registered voters between Oct. 15 and 19, for a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points. Subsamples of 770 self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 895 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents carried margins of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points and 3.27 percentage points, respectively.

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