Half of Americans embarassed by Donald Trump, Quinnipiac poll says

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was at 24 percent, Florida Sen. According to the poll, 58 percent who named a candidate say they could change their mind.

While almost half of those were Republican, the majority of GOP supports said they’d either feel embarrassed or neither. Marco Rubio of Florida has 12 percent.

“Trump responded with his biggest insult yet against Bush: “He’s an embarrassment to the Bush family”, Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press”.

The two candidates have been sparring all week after Bush started executing a new strategy of directly confronting Trump at the CNN debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday. “Donald Trump is a jerk”, he said emphatically. Trump has also kept nearly all the supporters he had from last month, among those re-interviewed. And I assume most big-name Republicans, increasingly terrified by Trump’s popularity and Cruz’s organizational strength, understand that.

Earlier this fall, Carson had pulled into a tie for the lead with Trump, but has since faded.

On Sunday Trump predicted that Bush will soon exit the Republican presidential race, saying that “he’s going to be off the stage soon”. In a one-on-one match-up, the former secretary of state would take 40 per cent support of all voters to real estate mogul Trump’s 29 per cent.

This being New Hampshire, most hard-to-get voters didn’t appear entirely convinced. Marco Rubio tried in vain to defend his conservative credentials against an immigration overhaul once hailed, but now out of favor in his party. Whether he should do that and continue to draw votes away from Christie when Cruz is a serious threat to win is a separate question, but Rubio at least has an organization in various early states. Lindsey Graham; former New York Gov. George Pataki; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen.

On Saturday, Bush sounded like a more fired-up candidate and not just when he was dissing Trump. That’s a 4-point spread in the part of the poll that had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. Chris Christie elicits a similar percent of his supporters who describe him as effective.

A new Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday found that half of Americans – 20% of whom are Republican – said they would be “embarrassed” to have Donald Trump as president. Republicans favor the idea of banning Muslims – 77 percent in Iowa – including evangelical voters who also favor it in the same large numbers – 75 percent. I think we all agree that those are the only three center-right Republicans with any chance of winning New Hampshire, yes? They feel these things “need to be discussed”.

Blue-collar voters don’t feel embarrassed about supporting Trump, who is very popular in their communities. Republican voters are liking what they see from Cruz at the moment, but the Texan’s support is far softer than the man he’s still chasing: (3) Hillary Clinton remains an extraordinarily weak frontrunner.