TRUMP WOBBLY? – AT 10:18 A.M. ET: We noted last night that Trump and Cruz are close in California. The question is whether this is a serious national trend. From Paul Mirengoff at Powerline:
The pattern has been the same throughout this campaign season. After each big primary, I look at the polling for the next major contest — e.g., Florida, South Carolina, or Michigan — and see Donald Trump leading by around 15 points. As the primary approaches, there is talk that the gap might be narrowing, and on election day we hear that the late voters have broken in favor of a non-Trump option. Yet in the end, Trump wins comfortably.
But now, a look at polling for Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, two huge upcoming primaries, suggests that Trump is vulnerable. Moreover, one national poll indicates the same thing.
The next big primary will be in Wisconsin on April 5. A poll by Basewood Research conducted for the Washington Free Beacon shows Ted Cruz in the lead at 36.2 percent, compared to 31.4 for Trump and 20.8 percent for John Kasich. The margin of error is 4.4 percent.
In a head-to-head race between Cruz and Trump, the Texas man leads 47.8 to 36.2. To be sure, Kasich isn’t going to drop out before the Wisconsin race. However, perhaps some of his backers will vote “strategically,” in other words for Cruz — the candidate who can defeat Trump in this particular contest.
Wisconsin is an open primary. Trump has had the edge in such races thanks to his comparatively strong support among Democrats and independents. Republicans made up only 72 percent of the Free Beacon’s sample, yet Cruz still outdistanced Trump.
In another survey of Wisconsin, conducted this week by Emerson, Cruz leads Trump, albeit by only one point. The poll also puts Cruz just one point behind Hillary Clinton in a general election match-up. Trump, by contrast, trails Clinton by 9 points.
COMMENT: It's those Trump/Clinton matchups that are generating a lot of second thoughts among Republicans. In virtually every poll, Trump is shown as the weakest Republican candidate against Clinton. And Trump's antics aren't doing him any good. His chiding of Heidi Cruz, Ted Cruz's wife, in the last week, will not help him with women, a group with which he trails Clinton badly.
March 28, 2016 |