Frustrated by the “clown car” effect of having 15 people in each of the GOP primary polls, I decided to run my own using Google Consumer Surveys. While I made a few methodological shortcuts to keep the costs down (specifically, I combined the screening question with the candidate selection question), the results at a basic level seem to reflect the current state of the race.
The poll results among Republican voters: (387 responses, MOE ≈ 5%)
- Donald Trump 40%
- Ben Carson 25%
- Marco Rubio 17%
- Ted Cruz 9%
None of the 800 total responses volunteered the name of any of the candidates in the JV debate last week. Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, and Carly Fiorina all had some support.
Rasmussen announced a poll today with only 6 candidates, the 4 listed, Jeb, and Fiorina. They found a significantly smaller lead for Trump. In particular, some polls show Rubio + Cruz having more support than Trump, while others show Trump having more support than the two combined.
I’ve got more analysis of the results at my political blog and the polling experience at my personal blog.