Washington – Republican Donald Trump is pulling away from the pack in the race for the party’s U.S. presidential nomination, widening his lead over his closest rivals in the past week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Friday.
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Republican voters show no signs they are growing weary of the brash real estate mogul, who has dominated political headlines and the 17-strong Republican presidential field with his tough talk about immigration and insults directed at his political rivals. The candidates are vying to be nominated to represent their party in the November 2016 general election.
Nearly 32 percent of Republicans surveyed online said they backed Trump, up from 24 percent a week earlier, the opinion poll found. Trump had nearly double the support of his closest competitor, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who got 16 percent. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was third at 8 percent.
Even when Trump was pitted directly in the poll against just his top two competitors, 44 percent backed him. Bush won about 29 percent of respondents, and Carson 25 percent.
“He’s not taking any guff from anybody,” Dewey Stedman, 70, a Republican from East Wenatchee, Washington, said of the publicity-loving billionaire. “If you don’t have something in your brains, you’re not going to have billions of dollars.”
Trump has driven the debate on the campaign trail with a hard-line immigration plan that calls for the deportation of undocumented immigrants, amendment of the Constitution to end automatic citizenship for all people born in the United States, and construction of a wall along the border with Mexico.
He also has feuded with Bush and other rivals while boasting he could easily beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s campaign momentum has paid off with bigger crowds on the campaign trail. On Friday night, he moved a planned rally in Mobile, Alabama, to a football stadium seating more than 40,000.
“It is an appeal to people that are just aggravated about what’s going on,” Republican strategist Rich Galen said, adding that Trump is a “novelty act” that voters will tire of.
Friday’s results in the online rolling opinion poll are based on a survey of 501 Republicans and have a credibility interval of plus or minus 5 percent.
Separate results found Clinton leading among Democrats, though support for her dipped below 50 percent to 48.5 percent.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont came in second in the poll of 625 Democrats, followed by Vice President Joe Biden, who has not entered the race. That survey had a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.5 percent.
Must be nice to have all the money at your disposal and own a Las Vegas casino, yep, in Sin City. Well he has fortune, fame from his t.v. show in which he basks in the joy of telling people they are fired, now if only he can have power. I guess the people in their high places who decide who think their more intelligent and important than us, are the only ones qualified enough to make the final decision. Well, at least I have a H.S. diploma of very noble importance, so I know many theories and facts that only pertain to this world. But you know what I’d rather be poor than rich so that I’m not disgusting and vain before GOD. And I have values I stand by and live by.
To #1 - I don’t know what you are ranting and raving about. According to Jewish law, one is not supposed to be jealous of another person’s wealth or possessions. It appears that you can’t stand Trump’s financial success. This is America, and people in America, as well as in Eretz Yisrael, are free to make as much money, or as little money as they wish. There is no law against that. I wish Mr. Trump a lot of hatzlacha, in his quest for this nation’s high political office. On this board, for the last two months, we have seen people such as yourself, who have written Trump off as a buffoon, a clown, and “not a serious candidate”. It appears that those people are now eating their words!!