Another SC poll puts Trump in the lead

More than 300 pastors and other religious leaders in SC on Thursday endorsed him for president.

While Donald Trump has led the Republican field for much of the presidential race, the results of a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll show the real estate tycoon has fallen behind Texas Senator Ted Cruz, R-Tex.

Yet it was Rubio who may have scored the Wednesday’s biggest win as he secured the coveted endorsement of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. “Ladies and gentlemen, if we elect Marco Rubio, every day will be a great day in America!”

On the other hand, Nevada has a white population of about 76 percent (closer to the US population of 77 percent) and SC is even more diverse, being only 68 percent white. Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen.

Though the general election is in November and parties’ nominating conventions are still months away, these early-voting states help pare down the field and focus momentum.

The NBC/WSJ survey of 400 Republican primary voters was conducted February 14th through 16th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. More than half (52%) name Trump as their first or second choice for the nomination (Cruz is named by 41% as first or second, Rubio by 35%).

Cruz is attempting to exploit a new issue – the fate of the Supreme Court vacancy left behind by the sudden passing of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia – to make gains in advance of this weekend’s South Carolina Republican primary. Specifically, the ad features footage of the billionaire businessman in a 1999 interview supporting abortion rights. “He’ll never be able to unify anything”, he said.

A Bloomberg Politics poll on Wednesday showed Trump with a 19-point lead over Cruz, and a Monmouth University poll also released on Wednesday showed him with an 18-point advantage over the Texas senator.

Marco Rubio comes in third with 17% support, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 11%, Ben Carson at 10% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in last place with 4%. This likely gave Cruz a boost of about 3 percentage points. Trump press secretary Hope Hicks called the new poll an “outlier”, not to be taken seriously. Cruz denied being involved with anything untoward.

Sanders is working to raise his support among blacks and Hispanics.

On Thursday, Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs distanced the senator from comments by rapper Killer Mike, who told a rally this week that “a uterus doesn’t qualify you to be president of the United States”, a reference to Clinton.