Here’s Why Donald Trump’s December Poll Numbers Matter

The results are a huge shift from just a month ago, when the Quinnipiac poll had Trump and Carson in a dead heat, and the pollster declared that “Carson has surgically cut away all but one GOP opponent”.

Donald Trump, the billionaire former reality television star now leading the Republican presidential primary race got some good news Friday, in the form of a national CNN/ORC poll that has him dominating the field with 36 percent support 20 percentage points higher than his closest challenger. A hoarse Trump said a strong showing was essential for his campaign – and turning out is everything. This 28-point gap in Trump’s support tells an important story: Republicans may condemn class warfare, but their presidential contest has taken on all the characteristics of a class war.

For a while I explained this sentiment thusly: Trump may not be personally anti-Semitic, but anti-Semites sure seem to love Trump.

Cruz also rejected calls from the Obama administration and the Democratic presidential candidates for stricter gun-control laws.

“If I could talk to these four people, I’d say you may be a Democrat, you may be a liberal, we’re going to make our country great…”

In fact, according to a 1999 Gallup poll analysis, in nearly every election since 1952, the leader in the Republican polls in the fall ended up being the party’s nominee.

Sabato continued. If they do, they can stop Trump.

‘I want to say where have you been for the last 70 years?’ Huckabee charged. “Poll numbers go up and down”, he said. In both polls Dr. Ben Carson has slid to third place. For the mid-teens, three candidates are behind Trump, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz garnering 16%, Ben Carson coming in at 14% while Florida Senator Marco Rubio is at 12%.

As for which candidate would have the best chance of winning the General Election, 52% say Trump, compared with 15% for Rubio, 11% for Cruz and 10% for Carson. Other candidates include New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former businesswoman Carly Fiorina.

“We do not believe he intended his comments regarding negotiations and money to relate specifically to their Jewishness, but we understand that they could be interpreted that way”, Greenblatt said.

But in a clear break from Rubio and other Republican national security hawks, Cruz suggested the United States would be safer with Assad continuing in his role as Syrian president, just as the world would have been safer had Middle East dictators not been toppled in Libya, Egypt and Iraq. Rubio and Carson are tied at 19%, and Trump is at 18%.