Trump laps Republican field in latest 2016 poll

Seventy-four per cent of Democrats said they would accept Syrian refugees while 82 per cent of Republicans would not, according to the poll. When Trump accused Bush on Twitter of distorting his statements, the Bush campaign replied later with a Web-only video to bolster their points. Supporters of Carson (44/10) and Cruz (45/26) agree with Trump’s that it happened while those of Rubio (24/47) and Bush (12/62) say it didn’t. Fifty-eight percent said that the party would have a better chance with someone else.

“Hillary Clinton tops him [Trump]. Sen”. Although this may seem like good news for Republicans, the fact is that Cruz is one of the most extreme candidates in the race.

There Rubio and Cruz engaged in furious argument over foreign policy and immigration, both making intellectually serious points but both also taking tacks that, as my Washington Examiner colleague Byron York has documented, can’t really be sustained. He’s widely acceptable to Republican primary voters and is a smooth and articulate debate performer.

On Tuesday, a poll from Quinnipiac University had Donald Trump in the lead, but by only four points – his smallest margin in months.

Analysts are struggling to explain how Trump continues to dominate the Republican polls when fifty percent of voters – including 20 percent of Republicans – said they would feel embarrassed to have him as president.

Gov. Chris Christie, who polls show is competing for second place behind Trump with Cruz and Florida Sen. In other key groups – for example, in Iowa among conservatives, evangelicals – Trump has held or gained even as rivals like Cruz have risen.

Bush, like many of his fellow Republican contenders, initially sought to dismiss Trump’s attacks and largely avoided firing back. Cruz has seen some increase on that last measure since the beginning of the month, but Trump still wins it in a walk.

There are a lot of divisions between where Cruz and Trump’s support is coming from.

Trump was up 3 points from CNN’s November survey, while Cruz inched up 2 points.

More than half of Republican voters, 56 percent, said Trump did not have the right experience to be president in May, with 41 percent saying he did. Clinton beat Trump by seven points (47-40 percent) while Sanders beat Trump by 13 points (51 to 38 percent) despite trailing Clinton in the Democratic primary race. The best predictor of future voting, many pollsters say, is past voting.

Marco Rubio on Wednesday criticized his opponent Ted Cruz for portraying himself as the only “principled conservative” in the Republican presidential race, arguing that Cruz’ positions are instead based on political calculation. So far Rubio has been impressively unflappable and even in the heat of argument has maintained a likeability edge over Cruz. In that regard, anyway, things certainly have changed since the summer.

Unless you have a vested interest in one of the polls being more reliable than the other – for instance, if you happen to be Donald Trump – it’s hard to see a substantial difference between the two. “I want to be in second place up until the day we win in Iowa, and then still remain in second place in New Hampshire until that day”.