Jeb! Bush is going to have to relinquish that exclamation point, because it's still all about the Donald. Trump
leads in the CNN/ORC released earlier this week, and now leads again in a
Quinnipiac poll released Thursday.
At 20 percent, Trump has "the largest tally for a Republican contender in any national poll by the independent Quinnipiac University." So there you go. He's trailed by Gov. Scott Walker at by 13 percent and Bush at 10 percent. All the others trail below the 6 percent mark. Trump also leads in the "hell no" poll, with 30 percent of Republican voters saying there's no way they would vote for him. But there's not much for Bush to cheer for in that statistic, because 14 percent of Republicans reject him outright. And, happily, 15 percent feel the same way about Gov. Chris Christie.
For all that, Hillary Clinton blows them all out of the water in direct match-ups. She's leading among Democratic primary voters with 55 percent. Sen. Bernie Sanders has 17 percent and someone who so far is not in the race, Vice President Joseph Biden, gets 13 percent. In a hypothetical general election, everyone beats Trump and Hillary beats everyone.
- Clinton thumps Trump 48 - 36 percent. She gets 41 percent to Bush's 42 percent and gets 44 percent to Walker's 43 percent.
- Biden tops Trump 49 - 37 percent. He gets 43 percent to Bush's 42 percent and ties Walker 43 - 43 percent.
- Sanders beats Trump 45 - 37 percent. Bush edges Sanders 44 - 39 percent and Walker slips past Sanders 42 - 37 percent.
It's getting increasingly challenging for the Republican establishment to deny that Trump represents the GOP. And it's getting increasingly dicey for them to keep trying to freeze him out, because he has all the encouragement he needs from the polls to play the spoiler with an independent run. The GOP has a big Trump problem, but he's just a symptom of their larger sickness. They created this monster.
