Donald Trump leads nationally in a new Fox News poll released on Tuesday with 24 percent support, but Ben Carson is right behind him at 23 percent. Ted Cruz is third with 10 percent.
Marco Rubio is next with 9 percent. Jeb Bush is in fith place with 8 percent. Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee are down at 5 percent, and Rand Paul is at 3 percent.
Ben Carson is the only Republican who beats Hillary Clinton in one-on-one match-up — defeating her 50-39 percent.
The poll shows that Trump is neither gaining or losing ground, but standing steady with so many candidates still in the race. The man with the mojo is Dr. Carson, who has climbed 11 points in the past six weeks.
The poll also shows that despite all the hype, Carly Fiorina is only about half what it was after the September debate, in which she was widely hailed the winner.
The survey shows that more Republicans are getting used to the possibility of a President Trump. Eighteen percent of GOP primary voters would “never” vote for Trump. That’s down significantly from the 33 percent who said so in August and the 59 percent in June.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,004 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from October 10-12, 2015. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters, and five points for both Democratic and Republican primary voters.
