As Super Tuesday quickly approaches, a poll released Thursday by Bloomberg indicates that it might be more of the same in seven Southern states that will cast their votes, with Donald Trump holding a commanding lead over his four other rivals.
The poll, conducted Feb. 22-24 by Washington-based Purple Strategies, feature respondents from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, commonly referred to as the "SEC Primary" states after the southeastern collegiate sports conference.
Results shows that Trump has received 37 percent support among Republican presidential primary voters surveyed, while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are both tied at 20 percent support apiece, reported Time. Trump would also defeat both of them in a hypothetical head-to-head match up, according to the poll, with the business mogul beating Rubio 48 to 44 percent, while Cruz fairs slightly worse at 49 to 40 percent.
Far behind are retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) with 8 percent support and 6 percent support, respectively.
The race still isn't set in stone however, and even with Trump's strong early numbers, 53 percent of respondents stated they could still be persuaded to support someone else other than their first-choice candidate, reported The Hill. In that instance, Trump actually lags behind with 13 percent of respondents choosing him as a second choice, as opposed to the 22 percent who would vote for Rubio and 19 percent for Cruz.
Still, these numbers are indicative of the broad-range of Trump's appeal, especially if factoring that despite being ranked weaker on questions about being a committed Christian and solid conservative, Trump, as a twice-divorced New Yorker, is still finding success among some of the nation's most conservative voters.
"These voters rate Trump as the least conservative and the least committed Christian of the three top candidates, and yet he still leads," said pollster Doug Usher, who led the survey. "He's turning everything we thought we knew about Republican primary voters on its head."
The poll surveyed 1,254 Republican primary voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
