Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump skipped the Fox News debate Thursday night but among Drudge Report readers he remains their top choice — by a mile.
In a Drudge Report poll gauging readers’ Republican presidential picks, Trump is far ahead of the rest of the field with 64.4 percent of the more than 724,600 total votes logged as of this article’s publication Friday morning.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has the second highest yield with 17.5 percent of Drudge reader votes.
After Cruz and Trump, however, the vote tallies drop precipitously. The candidate with the third most votes Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is receiving 6.8 percent of the vote. He is followed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has 5.1 percent of Drudge readers’ support.
The rest of the Republican field, however, is stuck at one percent or lower. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (1.28 percent), Ben Carson (1.25 percent), and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (1.06 percent).
Carly Fiorina (.99 percent), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (.94 percent), Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (.26 percent) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (.21 percent) are in the basement with less than one percent of Drudge readers’ votes.
Trump has often pointed to the Drudge Report post-debate polls as evidence of his debate prowess on the campaign trail. In the past four Drudge Report “who won” the debate polling Trump has come out well ahead of the competition. Winning past Drudge debate polls 48 percent, with 34.9 percent, 42.6 percent, and 52.9 percent.
This latest post-debate poll is shaping up to be Trump’s largest vote percentage so far, despite his absence at the debate.