Trump Leads, Jeb Slips, Rubio Crashes In WSJ/NBC News Poll

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

The latest poll from The Wall Street Journal and NBC News is all good news for Donald Trump and all bad news for former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Since the last WSJ/NBC poll in June, despite a full-frontal media push to destroy him, billionaire businessman Trump has risen from just 1% to take the lead with 19%.

Bush, who was in first place in June, has not just been overtaken by Trump, his support has cratered from 22% to just 14%. Bush is now in third place behind Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who sits at 15%. Back in June Walker was in second place with 17% support.

Hit the hardest between the two polls is Rubio, who fell from 3rd place in June to 8th place. Support for Rubio has slipped from 14% to just 5%.

Holding even steadier than Walker is Ben Carson. In June, the retired neurosurgeon was in 4th place with 11% support. Today Carson is still in 4th place with 10% support.

Rounding out the poll: Texas senator Ted Cruz sits in 5th place with 9% support; former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul are tied for 6th place at 6%; Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and John Kasich all earned just 3%.

This poll pretty much backs up what we have been seeing from most of the more recent polls.

The volatile movement for Bush and Rubio is worthy of note, as is the relative steadiness of support for Walker and Carson.

You would think the Trumpnado would do more damage to a Walker, who is loved by the base, and Carson, who is the outsider, and not the more establishment Jeb and Rubio. It could be that by comparison, Trump is making Jeb look paler, weaker, and  too careful. Jeb was always going to be a scripted and controlled candidate. Next to Trump, these don’t come off as virtues; he looks tentative, the opposite of a leader.

Rubio just hasn’t been in the news much.

Nevertheless, the fact that Trump is draining establishment votes is the most fascinating piece of news,

Caveat is this poll’s sample size and margin of error: “The poll of 1,000 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. For the 252 GOP primary voters surveyed, the margin of error was plus or minus 6.17 percentage points.”

ADDED: A new Monmouth poll, that has a somewhat larger sample size and smaller margin of error, backs up much of this NBC/WSJ poll. Most surprising is Trump’s favorability ratings, which is tied with Jeb at 52% and beats all the other GOP-ers, other than Rubio (54%).

In overall support, Trump is in first place and beats Jeb and Walker combined. In three weeks Jeb has lost 6% support.

With a 52% favorable rating (36% unfavorable), all that media/GOP establishment talk about Trump’s ceiling of support being too low to win the GOP nomination is now out the door.

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC               

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