Hillary Clinton still leads the Democratic field nationally with 49 percent support among Democrats and Democratic-leaners, but her margin narrows slightly to six points from nine points last week, while Bernie Sanders has support from 43 percent of the Democratic electorate, according to the latest NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking poll.
In the Republican primary race, Donald Trump continues to lead the field by 16 points with 46 percent support among Republicans and Republican-leaners, with Sen. Ted Cruz up two points from last week with 30 percent support and Gov. John Kasich trailing behind with 16 percent support, down 2 points from last week.
The poll was conducted online from April 4 through April 10 of 11,204 adults aged 18 and over who say they are registered to vote.
With a possible contested convention on the horizon for the Republicans, both Cruz and Trump have argued that they would be best suited to beat Hillary Clinton—if she is the nominee—in the general election in November. It is interesting, then, to look at whether Trump or Cruz would be more competitive in a general election match up against the current Democratic front-runner.
When given the choice between Clinton, Cruz, a third party candidate, or not voting, registered voters are fairly split between Clinton and Cruz: Thirty-seven percent would vote for Clinton and 32 percent would vote for Cruz. Another 19 percent would vote for an unnamed third party candidate and 10 percent would not vote at all.
When asked about Trump as the GOP nominee in November instead of Cruz, registered voters are split between Clinton and Trump, though the race is tighter: Thirty-eight percent would vote for Clinton and 36 percent would vote for Trump. Another 16 percent would vote for a third party candidate and 8 percent would abstain from voting.
When looking at this question by candidate support, only about half of Cruz supporters and half of Trump supporters said they would vote for the other GOP candidate in a general election should the Democratic candidate be Hillary Clinton.
In a theoretical November contest wherein Clinton and Trump were the candidates, 56 percent of Cruz supporters would vote for Trump and a quarter would vote for a third party candidate. Similarly, 53 percent of Trump supporters would vote for Cruz and 28 percent would vote for a third party candidate if their options in November were between Clinton and Cruz. Though the race is tighter in a general election match-up between Clinton and Trump, a hypothetical contest between Clinton and either GOP front-runner is still very close. The NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking poll was conducted online April 4 through April 10, 2016 among a national sample of 12,692 adults aged 18 and over, including 11,204 who say they are registered to vote. Respondents for this non-probability survey were selected from the nearly three million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. Results have an error estimate of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points. A full description of our methodology and the poll can be found here.
Stephanie Psyllos
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