Trump Widens Lead in Quinnipiac Poll

A new poll released Wednesday says businessman Donald Trump has expanded his lead nationally over other competitors for the Republican nomination for president.

The Quinnipiac University poll showed Trump with 39 percent support, followed by 19 percent for Florida Senator Marco Rubio and 18 percent for Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

The last Quinnipiac poll came out February 5 and had Trump leading with 31 percent. Since then, he easily won last week’s New Hampshire primary and two Republicans dropped out of the race.

On the Democratic side, the poll remained unchanged with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a virtual tie with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who also scored a sizeable victory in New Hampshire.

The poll was conducted February 10-15 and involved a survey of 1,342 registered voters across the country.

Poll: Over 50% voters have decided on candidate

Ohio Governor John Kasich finished second in New Hampshire and saw a bump in his support in the poll from 3 percent to 6 percent.Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush rose slightly to 4 percent.

Seventy percent of respondents said Bush had the right kind of experience to be president, while 68 percent said the same for Cruz and 60 percent for Trump.The three candidates had similar results on the question of who was trustworthy.

Democrats signaled they believe Clinton has a better shot at taking the November general election, with 83 percent saying she has a good chance to win and 69 percent saying Sanders has a good chance.

The nominee for each party will not be officially named until July, but a large number of states have their primary elections and caucuses in the next two months.

The Quinnipiac poll showed just over half of Republicans have settled on a candidate and 45 percent may still change their minds.Two-thirds of Democrats have chosen their candidate.

South Carolina holds its Republican primary on Saturday, while Nevada holds a Democratic caucus the same day.Next week, Democrats compete in South Carolina and Republicans in Nevada.