Trump Change: All Signs Point To 'The Donald'

Decisive victories in South Carolina and Nevada have Republican voters more certain than ever that Donald Trump will be their party’s nominee heading into Super Tuesday.

The latest Rasmussen Reports weekly Trump Change national survey finds that 81% of Likely Republican Voters now believe the billionaire businessman will win the GOP nomination, with 45% who say it is Very Likely. Both are the highest findings to date. A week ago, heading into the South Carolina primary and Nevada caucus, 71% of GOP voters expected a Trump win, with 36% who saw it as Very Likely.

Just 15% now think Trump is unlikely to be nominated. That's down from 24% last week and includes only six percent (6%) who say it’s Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Among all likely voters, 70% feel Trump is the likely Republican nominee, with 37% who consider it Very Likely. This compares to 58% and 25% a week ago and are also the highest findings to date. Only 23% say a Trump nomination is unlikely, including eight percent (8%) who believe it to be Not At All Likely.

The survey was conducted the two nights prior to last night’s Republican primary debate in Houston. We'll find out next week if the full-throttled attacks on Trump by Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz at that debate have dented voter expectations.

When Trump announced his candidacy in mid-June of last year, just 27% of Republicans – and 23% of all voters – said he was likely to end up as the 2016 GOP nominee.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 23-24, 2016 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

With Jeb Bush out of the race, Trump has widened his lead on Rasmussen Reports' most recent Republican primary ballot survey.

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Democrats and 69% of voters not affiliated with either political party consider a Trump nomination likely. That compares to 49% and 55% a week ago.

Men are still more confident of a Trump nomination than women are, but most voters in both groups consider it likely.

While 77% of whites and 60% of other minority voters think a Trump nomination is likely, just 47% of blacks agree.

The Republican establishment, terrified of a Trump victory, still hopes to coalesce the anti-Trump vote around one candidate, so look for increasing pressure on Ohio Governor John Kasich in particular to drop out of the race in hopes that his voters will go to Rubio.

One of Trump’s most prominent proposals is to build a wall along the Mexican border. Support for this proposal is down among voters, but voters strongly disagree with Pope Francis's comment that those who support building the wall are not Christians.

Rasmussen Reports' latest monthly Hillary Meter taken before Hillary Clinton's win in the Nevada Democratic caucus showed that 81% of Likely Democratic Voters think she is likely to be their party’s presidential nominee, including 43% who consider this Very Likely.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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