Friday, December 4, 2015

First Read: Trump Still On Top — And Getting Stronger

 
First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.
 
Trump is way ahead in GOP race. And he's only going to get stronger

The political headline of the morning is that Donald Trump is now leading the Republican presidential field by 20 points, according to a new CNN poll. Trump stands at 36% in the poll (up 9 points since October), while Ted Cruz is at 16% (up 12), Ben Carson at 14% (down 8), Marco Rubio at 12% (up 4), Chris Christie at 4% (unchanged), and at Jeb Bush 3% (down 5). It's Trump's biggest lead in any live-telephone national poll. And here's the thing: He's likely to only get stronger, given that this poll was taken BEFORE the San Bernardino shootings. Why do we say that? According to the poll, more Republicans (46%) think he can handle ISIS better than his closest competition (Cruz at 15%); more Republicans (48%) think he's better on illegal immigration than his closest competitor (Rubio at 14%); and more Republicans (30%) see him better on foreign policy than anyone else (Cruz at 17%). Now we have two important caveats: One, CNN's GOP screen here consists of registered Republican voters and GOP-leaning independents. Trump's numbers have always been higher among GOP-leaning indies than core Republicans. Are these independents going to turn out in Republican caucuses and primaries? Are these independents going to turn out in Republican caucuses and primaries? Two, we recall when our national Dec. 2011 NBC/WSJ poll had Newt Gingrich up 17 points over Mitt Romney. Then again, Newt Gingrich isn't Donald Trump… 

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Source: NBC News

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