A new 5-day tracking poll from Reuters shows Donald Trump’s slipping to its lowest point since the race narrowed to a three-person contest. Trump currently has 41percent support among Republicans nationally.
This level is down considerably from the 49.6 percent support he enjoyed right after Sen. Marco Rubio left the Republican primary.
Trump’s daily range of support in the tracking poll is now at 37-45 percent, nearing the lows he had in February, when the race was more crowded. The tracking poll suggests that Trump has gained almost no support from the candidates who have exited the race.
Indeed, the tracking poll shows Ted Cruz surging to just over 31 percent, almost twice the level of support he had on March 1st, Super Tuesday.
John Kasich has also seen a surge in support, although he remains a distant third. On March 1st, Kasich had seven percent support. In the latest tracking poll, however, his support has jumped to almost 19 percent.
While Trump overall enjoys a 10-point lead over Cruz, he only leads by seven points among women. Last week, at one point, Trump’s lead over Cruz among women was down to just one point.
Trump’s favorable ratings among all voters have taken a dive over the past two weeks. Just about ten days ago, Trump’s favorable rating among all likely general election voters was -9. Currently, his favorable rating is -23. That’s an enormous swing in less than two weeks.
This period of time includes the notarious “wife war” between Trump and Cruz. An anti-Trump super PAC used an old modeling photo of Trump’s wife in an on-line ad. Trump retaliated with tweets threatending to “spill the beans” about Cruz’s wife. Trump also retweeted an unflatering photo of Heidi Cruz.
Trump’s unfavorable rating among female voters didn’t actually increase during this controversy. That could be due to the fact, however, that more than 60 percent of women have had a negative view of Trump since the beginning of the year.
Counter-intuitively, the collapse in Trump’s favorables was driven by a drop in support from male voters. Before the “wife war,” Trump had a positive +12 favorable rating from male voters. Currently, however, his favorable rating with men is -14.
The “wife war,” in other words, cost Trump a 26 point swing to the negative among male general election voters.
Reports of the death of chivalry are perhaps greatly exaggerated.
Since the beginning of 2016, Donald Trump has dominated the Reuters tracking poll. Until now, his smallest lead was 17 points over Ted Cruz, back on January 19th. Trump had 33 percent support at that time, when nine candidates registered more than one percent support. Ted Cruz had 16 percent support.
Since then, after all the candidates except Cruz and Kasich have dropped out, Trump has picked up just eight points of support. Keep in mind, that eight point gain is from his lowest point all year.
As of now, the race for the nomination is very much still engaged. Trump is very much still bumping up against a ceiling of support.
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