Just ahead of the Iowa and New Hampshire caucuses nationwide polls hold little value. However, a new
Zogby Analytics poll of likely GOP caucus and primary voters shows that Donald Trump is the clear front-runner, leading Sen. Ted Cruz by 32 points.
According to the poll:
- Donald Trump, 45 percent,
- Ted Cruz, 13 percent,
- Marco Rubio, 8 percent,
- Jeb Bush, 6 percent,
- Ben Carson, 4 percent,
- Carly Fiorina, 3 percent,
- John Kasich, 3 percent,
- Rand Paul, 2 percent,
- Chris Christie, 2 percent,
- Mike Huckabee, 2 percent,
- Rick Santorum, 2 percent.
The poll notes that 10 percent are undecided.
"At least for now, Donald Trump has captured the imaginations of Republican likely voters nationwide, and his support looks wide and deep," writes John Zogby, the CEO of Zogby Analytics.
"He has defied the conventional wisdom at every turn – including a bold prediction that he will win Iowa … Candidates normally try to dampen expectations in early state voting so as to appear to have done better than most thought," Zogby added.
The poll also conducted a series of head-to-head matchups with individual challengers for the nomination:
- Trump led Cruz 59 to 29 percent,
- Rubio 64 to 27 percent,
- Bush 68 to 22 percent,
- Kasich 73 to 15 percent,
- Christie 69 to 19 percent.
The new poll of 294 likely Republican voters nationwide was conducted on January 19 and 20 and has a margin of sampling error of +/-5.8 percentage points.