Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has taken a commanding lead in Utah's Republican caucuses, according to a new poll released on Saturday. Utah, Arizona and American Samoa will be holding their GOP polling on Tuesday, March 22.
The Y2 Analytics survey shows Cruz with 53 percent support among likely Republican caucus-goers, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
At second place in the survey is Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 29 percent, while Donald Trump, the national front-runner, was a distant third at 11 percent—an apparent indication of how frustrated the state's Republicans are with Trump's candidacy, according to pollsters.
The Y2 Analytics poll was conducted from Thursday to Saturday and included 500 respondents.
Trump remains the heavy favourite to clinch the GOP nomination. Cruz, who has the second biggest delegate haul, contends that he is in the best position to block that. A resounding victory in Utah and Arizona could greatly boost his chances. Utah offers 40 delegates on a proportional basis while Arizona has 58 delegates all going to the winner. The convention in American Samoa has nine unbound candidates at stake.
For Cruz to take all of Utah's 40 delegates, he has to capture at least 50 percent of the vote, otherwise some of the delegates will go to Kasich and Trump on a proportional basis.
The Y2 Analytics poll showed that Cruz performed even better among "very likely" caucus attendees, coming in at 57 percent.
Y2 Analytics' Scott Riding said it appears that many of the supporters of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio went to Cruz after he dropped out of the race.
The poll found that 81 percent of respondents said the Republican Party had gotten off on the wrong track, with 64 percent saying Trump would make the party weaker if he became the nominee.
Only 29 percent of the respondents said they would vote for Trump in a general election, while 25 percent said they would write in another candidate, 15 percent said they'd vote for a third-party candidate and 7 percent said they would vote for the Democratic candidate.
