A Bloomberg poll finds that both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz would lose the general election Hillary Clinton if the election were held today. Only John Kasich beats Clinton in the hypothetical match-up. Bloomberg published this graphic showing the results of its poll:
As you can see, Trump is trailing by 18 in this poll, meaning that even if all the 9% who say they are “not sure” were to swing his way, he would still be looking at a sizable loss. While the match-up with Cruz is tighter, adding all of the undecideds to his total still results in a loss (though it would at least be within the poll’s margin of error). John Kasich beats Clinton but in the theoretical match-up but the race could easily go either way once the 11% of respondents who said they are “not sure” make a decision.
Underlying these results are the strong negatives Trump has when it comes to favorability. The poll found 68% of respondents view Trump unfavorably compared to 53% who say the same about Hillary Clinton.
There is some good news in this poll for Trump. Respondents overwhelmingly (63%) believe whoever arrives at the convention with the most delegates should become the nominee, even if he falls shy of the 50% needed to automatically make him the nominee. That’s bad news for John Kasich who is relying on a brokered convention strategy to give him a shot at the nomination.
In addition, Trump is still the leading candidate within the GOP whether or not Kasich drops out of the race. In a three-way race, 40% of respondents say Trump is their first choice or the person they are leaning toward supporting. Ted Cruz is back at 31% and John Kasich at 25 percent. But even if one of the other two candidates drop out, Trump comes out on top. In a two-man race against Cruz, Trump wins 48% to 44% (margin of error 5.1%) and in a race against Kasich Trump wins 51% to 43 percent.
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