ORC poll: Donald Trump dominates GOP pack heading into 2016

The CNN/ORC poll was taken after the Republican debate last week, hosted by CNN and Facebook.

The poll surveyed 438 registered voters who described themselves as Republicans or as Independents who lean Republican.

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. Meanwhile, both Sen. Marco Rubio and Dr. Ben Carson are trailing slightly behind the two.

According to CNN, the poll reveals Trump’s lead stems from the opinion that he can best handle the economy, illegal immigration and ISIS. The campaign has released several slickly-produced anti-Trump videos – including one released on Monday that faults Rubio, Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for failing to confront Trump.

Ted Cruz still trailing TrumpThere are concerns as what the year 2016 holds for the GOP candidates, especially the ones dominating the headlines within the Republican party. That consolidation is reflected in voters’ overall preferences.

In a November Quinnipiac poll, Cruz and Trump were tied in terms of “trustworthiness”, with each at 15%. That latter figure marks the highest share for any two candidates combined this cycle.

Public Policy Polling’s newest Iowa poll found that almost half of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s supporters think the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a good idea. “All the votes Cruz hopes to pick up are now voting for Trump – and if you attack the candidate, you’re attacking his voters”.

Trump has issued a series of provocative – some would say outrageous -statements since launching his campaign June 16, beginning with his accusation that Mexico was sending “rapists” and other criminals into the United States. Another is that one of the polls is a statistical anomaly – standard practice in political polling is to present margins of error with 95 percent certainty, meaning there’s a 5 percent chance that the real number in the electorate as a whole is outside each poll’s margin of error. He’s also posted the largest increase in favorability rating among all adults since September, climbing from 27% favorable in September to 45% now, an 18-point gain.

The Rubio campaign needs Cruz-mentum to be dulled, or better fully tarred and feathered by the noise, bluster, and bashing of their most menacing adversary – Trump.

Just 23% of voters said they would be proud if Trump were president. Cruz has a strong advantage with “very conservative” voters at 37 percent to 25 percent for Trump and 14 percent for Carson, but Trump leads based on his strength with moderates, getting 42 percent to 14 percent each for Rubio and Bush. This follows the aforementioned polls from Quinnipiac and PPP which showed him getting 6% and 5% respectively. Paul is now sixth in Iowa, while Kasich is sixth in New Hampshire.

As Rachel noted on the show the other day, former President George W. Bush participated in a private conference call with Jeb Bush’s national finance team on Friday, and sounded optimistic.