Drawing on Republican support for his proposal to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the United States, Donald Trump has expanded his lead in the latest national poll, garnering his highest-ever level of support in the 2016 GOP race. Trump came in with 38 percent support among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents in the ABC News/Washington Post survey, up 6 percentage points from last month's poll, entirely among men.
It's the latest sign that Trump is immune to blowback, and affirms that his controversial comments on immigration and terrorism are widely supported by rank-and-file Republicans despite condemnation from Republican leadership and most of Trump's rival candidates, according to The Washington Post. Over half of Republican respondents, 59 percent, agreed with Trump's proposal to ban all Muslims.
Ted Cruz, a Texas senator and tea party favorite also running on an anti-establishment campaign, placed second place with 15 percent support, up 8 points from the previous November poll. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, following a series of foreign policy hiccups and questions about his past, fell from 22 percent in last month's poll to 12 percent in December.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tied with Carson at 12 percent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush came in with 5 percent, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took 4 percent. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Ohio Gov. John Kasich came in with 2 percent and all other candidates registered 1 percent support or less.
By wide margins, respondents said Trump has the best chance of winning the presidency and can be trusted more than Cruz, Carson, Rubio and Bush on the issues of immigration and terrorism. Voters also said Trump is the strongest leader and has the best personality.
However, it's not all good news for Trump. Carson narrowly beat the real estate mogul in terms of honesty and trustworthiness. Further, 69 percent of U.S. adults said they would feel "anxious" with a President Trump and 49 percent said they would feel "strongly" so, compared to just 29 percent who said they would feel comfortable. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton only made 51 percent of respondents anxious.
In a hypothetical general election matchup between Trump and Clinton, the former secretary of state beats Trump by 53 percent to 40 percent among all adults. Among registered voters, Clinton wins 50 percent to 44 percent, which is within the range of sampling error.
The telephone survey was conducted Dec. 10-13 among 1,002 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. There were 851 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, and 362 Republicans or Republican-leaning registered voters, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.
