GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is at 41 percent in the latest national poll by Morning Consult of 2,017 registered voters, and he reached 40 percent primary support among 770 self-identified Republicans.
When only Republicans were asked to identify their second choice in the primary, Trump nudged over 50 percent with a gain of 11 points.
That’s the first primary poll showing him above 50 percent, counting first choice and second choice votes.
Ben Carson scored 14 percent first-choice votes. He also got 18 percent second-choice votes, likely including many Trump supporters.
In contrast, Sen. Marco Rubio’s national support was 5 percent and his GOP support was only 5 percent. But he gained 8 points in second-choice picks, bringing him to 13 percent.
That’s level with Jeb Bush, whose first and second-choice voters totaled 13 percent of the GOP sample. He picked up 18 percent in second-choice votes, likely including many trump supporters.
Carly Fiorina scored just 3 percent in first-choice primary votes.
The Morning Consult poll shows Trump scoring higher than other polls. For example, a CNN poll released Oct. 20 showed Trump at 27 percent, plus Bush and Rubio at just 8 percent each. The Wall Street Journal has Trump at 25 percent.
The cumulative first-choice support for establishment GOP candidates, including Bush and Rubio, is only 19 percent.
The Morning Consult survey polled 2,017 registered voters between Oct. 15 and 19, for a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points. Subsamples of 770 self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 895 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents carried margins of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points and 3.27 percentage points, respectively.