Closing the gap

Poll: Cruz closing the gap with Trump

By Nick Gass

Donald Trump's perch atop the 2016 presidential polls is looking a little shakier this morning.

In the latest Quinnipiac University national survey released Tuesday, Trump leads Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by just four percentage points.

Trump's share remained essentially unchanged from the university's last poll, ticking up one point to 28 percent. Cruz, meanwhile, shot up eight percentage points to 24 percent.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio finished third with 12 percent, a five-point drop since late November, while retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson continued his downward spiral with 10 percent, a six-point hit in the same period. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie registered 6 percent, his highest level of support in a telephone poll since late May. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took 4 percent, while all other candidates earned 2 percent or less and 8 percent remained undecided. Of those who named a candidate, 58 percent of Republican voters said they might change their mind before voting in their state’s primary.

Cruz commanded pluralities of support over Trump among those describing themselves as members of the tea party (38 percent to 27 percent) and white, born-again Evangelical Christians (33 percent to 22 percent). Cruz also led Trump among very conservative supporters (38 percent to 27 percent), while Trump led at least nominally in every other demographic polled.

But it's close. Among men, for example, Cruz trails Trump 30 percent to 29 percent, while among those with a college degree, he trails 24 percent to 21 percent.

Of the Republican voters who watched the Dec. 15 debate, regardless of whom they plan to support, 40 percent said Cruz won, while just 20 percent thought Trump had done so. The Manhattan mogul has often touted his performance in instant, unscientific polls on websites like Drudge Report, Slate and others.

The latest results for Cruz come on the heels of the latest Fox News poll released Dec. 18 that showed Trump with a more commanding 21-point lead but with the Texas senator rising to a then-high of 18 percent in a national poll. According to the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Trump leads Cruz by 17.3 percentage points, 34.4 to 17.1.

In Iowa, Cruz leads Trump by 9 points, according to the latest CBS News/YouGov poll. A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa poll released Dec. 12 yielded a 10-point advantage for Cruz.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton led Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Quinnipiac national poll by a margin of two-to-one — 61 percent to 30 percent, while former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley earned 2 percent. About 6 percent remain undecided in the Democratic ranks surveyed, with 41 percent of those decided responding that they could change their mind about their candidate.

Quinnipiac also asked voters whether they would be embarrassed or proud to have Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as president.

For Trump, half of those responding — 50 percent — indicated that they would be embarrassed to have him as commander in chief, while just 23 percent said they would be proud and 24 percent said they would not feel either way. Of that share, 44 percent of Republicans said they would be proud, 20 percent indicated embarrassment and 32 percent said they would be neither. Meanwhile, 82 percent of Democrats said they would be embarrassed and just 4 percent said they would be proud, with 12 percent indicating neither.

In the case of Clinton, voters were more split, with 33 percent saying they would be proud, 35 percent embarrassed and 29 percent neither. Among Republicans, 72 percent said they would be embarrassed, 5 percent said they would be proud and 21 percent said they would be neither. Those shares are nearly inverted on the Democratic side, with 72 percent expressing pride, 5 percent embarrassment and 23 percent neither.

The poll was conducted Dec. 16-20 via landlines and cellphones, surveying 1,140 registered voters with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. The sample includes 508 Republicans, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, and 462 Democrats, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.