Donald Trump and Jeb Bush are in a virtual dead heat atop the field of 2016 candidates seeking the GOP nomination, but the quickest rise has been for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has been placing low in most polls but marked a third-place finish in a new Reuters-Ipsos poll released Saturday.
The Reuters-Ipsos Poll shows that Christie may be on the verge of a major comeback with 9.5 percent of the vote, just behind Bush and Trump.
The rolling average of Real Clear Politics polls had Christie at 3.8 percent, in 10th place in a crowded field of 15 GOP candidates. And a CNN poll completed on June 28 had Christie at just 3 percent.
But those polls reflect data before Christie’s June 30 presidential announcement. With the Reuters poll indicating Christie on the rise, Jeb Bush may suffer with centrist GOP voters defecting for the New Jersey governor.
The numbers show Bush, a former Florida governor, hanging on to the lead by just a hair, with 16.1 percent of respondents in an online poll of Republicans. Billionaire real estate developer Trump squeezed in just behind Bush with 15.8 percent of the respondents.
Christie was followed in the Reuters poll by:
- Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 8.1 percent;
- Surgeon and author Ben Carson at 7.2 percent;
- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 5.8 percent;
- Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, 5.5 percent;
- Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, 5.3 percent;
- Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, 5 percent;
- Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, 3.9 percent;
- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, 2.1 percent;
- Former NY Gov. George Pataki, 2 percent;
- Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, 1.6 percent;
- Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, 1.6 percent;
- Ohio Gov. John Kasich, 1.4 percent;
- South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, 1.3
However, when voters were given a choice of three candidates, Bush, Trump or Rubio, Bush led with 42 percent of the voters, followed by 28.4 percent for Trump and 20 percent for Rubio. Christie was not included in that part of the poll.
When it came to Democrats in the poll, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remained with a comfortable lead of 48.3 percent of the self-identified Democrats polled, but Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is gaining ground, earning 22.9 percent. Vice President Joe Biden, who has not entered the race, still got 10.7 percent of the prospective voters.
Overall, according to Real Clear Politics' average of established polls, Bush is hanging on to the lead by 5.8 percentage points over the other challengers. Walker, who has not announced his candidacy, is in second, and Carson is in third place overall. Christie is in 10th place according to overall polling, and Trump is in sixth.
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll of the Republican race, 404 self-identified Republicans age 18 or over were questioned from July 6-10. The poll had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 5.7 percentage points.
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll of the Democratic race, 504 self-identified Democrats age 18 or over were questioned over the same time period, with a credibility interval of 5.1 percentage points.
Related stories: