Donald Trump continues to lead the field of GOP presidential candidates, according to the first poll released since the billionaire real estate mogul made a number of controversial comments during and after the Republican primary debate Thursday night.
An NBC News poll released Sunday night found Trump retained the support of 23 percent of Republican primary voters following the debate, 10 points more than his closest competitor. Fifty-four percent of those Trump supporters said they would still vote for him if he doesn't win the Republican nomination and decides to run as an independent candidate, which he said was a possibility during the debate.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz came in second with 13 percent, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson clinched third with 11 percent. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio both got 8 percent, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker both received 7 percent.
The poll found that Cruz and Fiorina saw the biggest gain in favorability ratings following the debates, at seven and six points, respectively.
While Fiorina didn't qualify for the prime time debate and participated in the secondary debate instead, Republican primary voters declared her the overall debate winner. Trump followed Fiorina with 18 percent in terms of best debate performance, however, another 29 percent said Trump did the worst in the debate, which is an indication of how polarizing he is, according to NBC.
The poll was conducted online by SurveyMonkey for 24 hours, from Friday evening into Saturday.
Trump's continued domination is perplexing in that he has faced significant backlash for a range of comments, from saying that some illegal Mexican immigrants are rapists to questioning Sen. John McCain's status as a war hero. The day after the debate, Trump told CNN that Fox News debate moderator Megyn Kelly had "blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever," referring to her aggressive questioning of Trump during the debate.
Trump has refused to back away from those remarks about Kelly, which resulted in a group of conservative activists withdrawing an invitation for him to deliver a keynote address at a gathering on Saturday. Trump later clarified that when he said blood coming out of "wherever," he actually meant blood was coming out of her nose.
"I apologize when I'm wrong, but I haven't been wrong. I said nothing wrong," Trump said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
