New CNN Poll: Trump Loses To Hillary, Rubio & Cruz Would Win

CNN/ORC is out with another new national poll this morning, and it tells us exactly the same thing every available source of poll information we have already tells us – Donald Trump is a loser who loses to Hillary Clinton, and it’s not close.

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As with prior CNN/ORC polls – including the national primary poll that had Trump supporters so gleeful just yesterday – this is an interview of 1,001 adults nationally including 920 registered voters, with a margin of error +/- 3 points, conducted February 24 – 27 by phone (60/40 landline/cell). Results are reported as a registered voter poll (it’s way early for likely-voter polling of the general electorate).

Here’s the general election topline, although it bears noting this was questions 21-31 of the poll, after a lot of favorability/unfavorability and trusted-on-particular-issues questions, which may affect results. The comparison is to a January 21-24 poll:

Hillary 52, Trump 44 (Hillary +8; was Hillary +1 in the prior poll)
Rubio 50, Hillary 47 (Rubio +3; was Rubio +3 in the prior poll)
Cruz 49, Hillary 48 (Cruz +1; was Cruz +3 in the prior poll)

Yet again, as we have seen repeatedly, Rubio wins, Trump loses, and Cruz is in a dogfight but much more competitive than Trump. And more worrisome for Republicans backing Trump or Democrats facing the prospect of Rubio, the first two results show the winner hitting the magic 50% mark. Note that the movement from the last CNN/ORC poll is a little bit bad for Cruz, very bad for Trump, but status quo for Rubio, who has led Hillary in the last four CNN/ORC polls having trailed her by 16 in the first poll taken when he jumped in the race. Trump has trailed Hillary in the last five CNN/ORC polls. Rubio would start the general election ahead, Trump would start it in a big hole.

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Trump would also get massacred by the old socialist loon, who could out-populist him any day:

Bernie 55, Trump 43 (Bernie +12; was Bernie +3 in the prior poll)
Bernie 53, Rubio 45 (Bernie +8; was Bernie +1 in the prior poll)
Bernie 57, Cruz 40 (Bernie +17; was Bernie +3 in the prior poll)

Nobody has seriously tried to rattle Sanders’ vaguely genial image with the general public, and the more his idealistic campaign gets trodden under by the Democratic machine, the more sympathetically he is likely to be viewed. But barring a big surprise today or an unexpected future event, it’s not all that likely he’s going to be the Democratic nominee.

Favorable/unfavorable (for “undecided” I’m combining “no opinion” and “haven’t heard of”):

Bernie Sanders 57/33 (+24), 10% undecided
Marco Rubio 44/38 (+6), 18% undecided
Ted Cruz 36/48 (-12), 17% undecided
Hillary Clinton 42/55 (-13), 3% undecided
Donald Trump 37/60 (-23), 3% undecided

As you can see, Rubio is by far the most well-liked of these candidates besides Crazy Uncle Bernie (despite having been on the receiving end of more negative ads than any of them), but he and Cruz still have a chunk of the voters who are persuadable; opinions on Hillary and Trump are pretty well cast in concrete at this point, and Trump yet again has a solid 60% against him.

Hillary has huge race, gender, education, geographic and religious gaps, just waiting to be exploited by a Republican who isn’t massively unpopular:

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Non-whites 58/36 (+22)
Women 52/44 (+8)
Moderates 50/46 (+4)

Urban 48-49 (-1)
Northeast 47/48 (-1)
College educated 47/49 (-2)
Non-Evangelical 47/49 (-2)
Age 55+ 45/51 (-6)

Suburban 44/54 (-10)
South 43/54 (-11)
Midwest 42/55 (-13)
Under 55 41/56 (-15)
Non college 40/57 (-17)
West 37/60 (-23)
Rural 35/62 (-27)
Independents 33/63 (-30)
Whites 34/64 (-30)
Men 32/65 (-33)
Evangelical 25/75 (-50)

How do the Republicans stack up with those groups? First Trump, who gets destroyed with women, the college educated, city dwellers, and non-whites, but also shares Hillary’s problems with non-old voters and voters outside the Northeast and especially in the West:

White Evangelical 56/40 (+16)
Rural 53/45 (+8)

Men 46/52 (-6)
Whites 44/53 (-9)

Age 55+ 43/53 (-10)
Non college 40/58 (-18)
Northeast 40/59 (-19)
Midwest 38/60 (-22)
Suburban 37/60 (-23)
South 37/60 (-23)
Independents 34/62 (-28)
West 34/63 (-29)
Under 55 34/64 (-30)
Non-White-Evangelical 32/66 (-34)
Moderates 31/66 (-35)
College educated 30/67 (-37)
Women 29/68 (-40)
Urban 28/69 (-41)
Non-whites 23/74 (-51)

The head-to-head poll shows Trump would lose more Republicans than Rubio or Cruz (he’d get 85% compared to 90% for Cruz, 93% for Rubio) and get nuked with non-white voters, 80-15 and women 62-34. He’d carry men 54-41, a smaller margin than Rubio or Cruz. He’d lose even his key demographic, non-college grads, to Hillary 50-46 and get toasted with college grads, 57-39. He’d lose independents 48-44, moderates 58-38, suburbanites 55-42, and lose 60-36 among voters who are not white Evangelicals.

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Rubio has a profile that looks in some ways more like a Democrat – his best group outside of white Evangelicals is the college educated, and he runs better with younger than older voters, while faring less well (relatively) with rural and less educated voters. Like Hillary, Trump, and Cruz, he’s unpopular in the West. But he especially runs well in the Midwest and the suburbs, and is not double digits underwater with any demographic, even non-white voters:

White Evangelical 62/24 (+38)
College educated 51/35 (+16)
South 49/36 (+13)
Whites 48/36 (+12)
Suburban 47/36 (+11)
Men 47/37 (+10)
Moderates 45/35 (+10)
Midwest 40/31 (+9)
Northeast 47/40 (+7)
Under 55 42/35 (+7)
Age 55+ 48/42 (+6)
Independents 40/35 (+5)
Women 42/38 (+4)
Rural 42/39 (+3)
Non college 41/39 (+2)

Urban 40/41 (-1)
Non-White-Evangelical 39/41 (-2)
Non-whites 37/40 (-3)
West 38/45 (-7)

The head-to-head poll shows Rubio would lose women to Hillary, 56-42, but would destroy her with white voters 61-37 and men 58-37. He’d carry voters under 55, 50-46, including 52-45 among 35-49 year olds, and carry senior citizens 53-45. He’s lose college graduates 51-46 and moderates 52-46, but carry non-college grads 52-45 and independents 53-41. He and Cruz would actually run around the same with non-white voters, losing 69-27 compared to Cruz’s 68-28, but much better than Trump.

Cruz has more the traditional profile of a hard-edged conservative, and is actually popular only with rural voters and white Evangelicals (note that the poll isn’t apples-to-apples in that regard because it isolates white Evangelicals for the Republicans, not the Democrats):

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White Evangelical 62/27 (+35)
Rural 43/39 (+6)

Midwest 37/39 (-2)
South 41/45 (-4)
Whites 40-45 (-5)
Men 40/48 (-8)
Non college 36/45 (-9)

Under 55 35/46 (-11)
Age 55+ 38/51 (-13)
Suburban 37/51 (-14)
Women 32/47 (-15)
Independents 31/47 (-16)
West 34/53 (-19)
College educated 35/55 (-20)
Moderates 31-51 (-20)
Urban 29/49 (-20)
Non-White-Evangelical 29/53 (-24)
Northeast 29/55 (-26)
Non-whites 28/52 (-34)

The head-to-head poll shows Cruz would beat Hillary 58-38 with men, but lose 58-39 with women, a colossal gender gap. Cruz would actually carry independents, 50-43, while narrowly losing suburbanites 50-49 and getting clocked with moderates, 55-41.

Among the minor candidates and prospective candidates, who have bigger undecided shares – Kasich is the only “candidate” polled who has almost as many voters undecided or unaware of him as voters who approve of him, and he’s almost as unknown after 10 months of campaigning and 10 national debates as Mike Bloomberg, who has scarcely appeared in public in a year:

John Kasich 41/22 (+19), 37% undecided
Ben Carson 44/35 (+9), 20% undecided
Mike Bloomberg, 28/34 (-6), 38% undecided

Bill Clinton polls at 56/38 (+18).

Just among registered Republicans, Rubio easily outpaces the other two real candidates:

Marco Rubio 68/23 (+45), 9% undecided
Ted Cruz 64/30 (+34), 6% undecided
Donald Trump 65/32 (+23), 3% undecided

For those dreaming of “moderate” third party candidates, Bloomberg’s favorability with Democrats is 40/27 (+13), with Republicans 20/50 (-30). With Bloomberg in the mix, Trump runs 1 point behind Hillary (38-37-23), but eight behind Bernie (44-38-18), suggesting that Bloomberg’s core base is unenthused Hillary voters; Sanders would love nothing better than to stand between a pair of billionaires. Bloomberg has positive favorables with women (29/27, +2) and 18-34 year olds (27-24, +3), but is under water with men, all age brackets above 35, and equally with white and non-white voters, the latter suggesting why he could not run in a Democratic primary.

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