Former Florida Gov. John Ellis "Jeb" Bush is in a neck-and-neck race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination with real-estate mogul Donald Trump, a national poll has revealed over the weekend.
A survey conducted by Reuters and Ipsos on Saturday showed Bush received support from 16.1 percent of GOP primary voters, a score that puts him in a virtual dead heat with Trump, who got 15.8 percent.
Reuters/Ipsos noted Trump's anti-Mexican comments dominated the news coverage of the Republican presidential nomination, helping the billionaire climb up in the poll to draw even with Bush.
However, Reuters/Ipsos found out that given a choice of only three Republican candidates—Bush, Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio—42 percent of the respondents gave their support to Bush. Trump got 28.2 percent while Rubio received 20 percent.
The same poll also revealed that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie trailed Bush and Trump at 9.5 percent, followed by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 8.1 percent, and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 7.2 percent.
At a rally in Arizona, Trump dismissed the result of the poll, saying he does not actually see Bush as a factor.
"How can I be tied with Jeb Bush? He's terrible. He's weak on immigration. Sanctuary cities. Did you know that he had five of them in Florida when he was governor?" he asked, according to CBS News.
It added that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who just formally announced his entry into the 2016 US presidential elections for the Republican nomination, received 5.8 percent support from Grand Old Party majority.
The two-term mid-Western governor had waited for the conclusion of budget negotiations before entering the crowded and a tight race of 17 Republican presidential aspirants, Fox News reported in a separate report.
He will be campaigning in Nevada, South Carolina, and New Hampshire right away.
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll of the Republican race, 404 self-identified Republicans age 18 or over were questioned from July 6-10. The poll had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 5.7 percentage points.
