Trump Change: ‘The Donald’ Holds Steady

Can next Tuesday’s New York primary restore Donald Trump’s fortunes?

The latest Rasmussen Reports weekly Trump Change survey finds that 76% of Likely Republican Voters think the billionaire businessman is likely to be their presidential nominee, including 38% who say it’s Very Likely. The latter figure is down only slightly from 40% last week, but a month ago 59% of Republicans said a Trump nomination was Very Likely, a figure that’s been falling ever since. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Still, Trump remains well ahead of his two remaining GOP rivals in the expectations game. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republicans think Senator Ted Cruz is likely to be the Republican nominee, but that includes only 14% who say it’s Very Likely. Just 13% think Ohio Governor John Kasich will be nominated, with four percent (4%) who say it’s Very Likely.

Among all likely voters this week, 67% believe Trump is the likely GOP nominee, with 30% who say it’s Very Likely. This is little changed from last week. But four weeks ago, 46% of all voters said Trump was Very Likely to be nominated.

Twenty-seven percent (27%) say Trump is unlikely to win the nomination, although that includes only nine percent (9%) who feel it’s Not At All Likely.

Unchanged from last week are the 18% of Republicans who see a Trump nomination as unlikely, but just four percent (4%) think it’s Not At All Likely.

The latest findings suggest that Trump is in a holding pattern after his forward momentum was halted by several campaign gaffes, millions of dollars in negative advertising directed at him by some in his party and his loss of the Wisconsin primary. But the recent loss of Colorado’s delegates to Cruz doesn’t appear to have hurt him nationally, perhaps because of the questions that have been raised about that process.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on April 13-14, 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.

Rasmussen Reports will release its latest monthly Hillary Meter Monday morning, testing how voters view Hillary Clinton’s chances for this year’s Democratic presidential nomination.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of unaffiliated voters and 58% of Democrats continue to believe that Trump will be the Republican presidential nominee.

Among voters who think Hillary Clinton is Very Likely to be the Democratic standard-bearer, 66% say Trump is her likely opponent.

Men remain slightly more confident than women that Trump will be the nominee. Most voters of all ages are in general agreement that he is likely to win the party’s official nod.

Whites see Trump as the likely nominee more than black and other minority voters do.

It’s hard to imagine at this point who will emerge from the mess the Republican party is making of itself to be the GOP standard-bearer in the fall.

One-in-four Republicans (25%) say they are more likely to vote for someone else or not vote at all if Trump does not win the Republican nomination and chooses not to run as an independent. 

Most Republicans think Cruz and Kasich have what it takes to be president, but they are evenly divided over whether the same is true of Trump. Among all voters, however, only Kasich fills the bill.

Democrats see Hillary Clinton as the more qualified of their two remaining presidential candidates, but voters in general are more critical of both candidates’ credentials.

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

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