A new Bloomberg Politics poll released Wednesday finds Donald Trump with a 19 point lead over Sen. Ted Cruz before Saturdays South Carolina Primary:
- Donald Trump – 36%
- Ted Cruz – 17%
- Marco Rubio – 15%
- Jeb Bush -13%
- Ben Carson – 9%
- John Kasich – 7%
Forty three percent of South Carolina primary voters haven’t made up their minds or they could be persuaded to support someone other than their first choice. The poll was conducted February 13-16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent. The results are in line with the Real Clear Politics average for the South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary.
Other interesting findings include:
- Fifty four percent of likely primary voters don’t want the Senate to hold hearings on any nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, while 42 percent want hearings and votes on any nominee put forward by President Obama.
- More than a third of respondents would not be OK with Trump becoming the nominee, the highest among the candidates.
- More than a third of respondents say Trump isn’t religious enough to be a good president.
A majority want candidates to be realistic and if it looks like they don’t have a chance to win the nomination they should give up and support a competitor and help unify the party for the general election,