Ted Cruz Rises to Second Place in New National Public Opinion Poll

The recent support helps Cruz position himself as a viable Donald Trump alternative, while evangelicals pass on retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. “And people, here particularly, they get to see all of the candidates in New Hampshire in these early states”.

With Cruz out of the race, 46 percent said they would support Trump, while Rubio and Cruz received 15 and 13 percent support, respectively.

Clinton leads Sanders for the Democratic nomination by 31 points – reaching 61 percent support, her highest in nearly two months of polling. This year, however, the establishment candidates are clawing at each other to take on anti-establishment frontrunners.

First and foremost is that national polling gives a rough sense of where Republican voters are leaning, but they’re not super predictive.

That in turn suggests he’ll have a low ceiling of support in later contests, since many, perhaps most, of non-Trump respondents have unfavorable feelings about him.

Continuing to dig in, Bush said Saturday it’s “deeply discouraging” that Trump is “actually running for president and insulting people”. Trump’s support remains stable, but Cruz’s influx of converts is more than enough to help take the lead. Rubio said in an interview aired Sunday on that Cruz wanted some “wiggle room”. Trump received 9 percent, while 6 percent were undecided.

“I find it remarkable that we have candidates basically saying the end is near, that our country no longer is great: don’t worry I’ll fix it cause we’ll make America great again without any plans”, Bush said invoking Trump’s campaign slogan. Of those who said they were “very conservative” socially and/or religiously, 29 percent backed Cruz, while Trump received 27-percent support. In New Hampshire, a majority of them say they’re not just voting for him, they’re telling other people they know to vote for him too. But consider this feat: Cruz has managed to maintain a fragile truce with Trump while surging past him in the crucial first state. Carson and Bush each received 10 percent, but no other candidate received more than 6 percent.

GOP pollster Joe Caccitolo, who runs Compass Consulting, conducted the automated telephone survey of 2,104 likely Republican voters last Wednesday, the day after the fifth Republican debate in Las Vegas.

On Saturday morning, Bush made an explicit plea to the voters here, asking them for their vote, and for their active involvement in his campaign.