Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is consistently leading the South Carolina polls before the party's primary on Saturday.
In a new CNN/ORC poll conducted from Feb. 10 to 15, Trump was seen with 38 percent support, gaining a 16-point lead against second placer Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Following the Republican frontrunners are Florida Senator Marco Rubio, garnering 14 percent support; former Florida governor Jeb Bush with 10 percent; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson with six percent; and Ohio Governor John Kasich with four percent.
The poll also revealed that the real estate mogul is the top choice of most respondents as the candidate who would best handle different issues of the country, including the economy, illegal immigration, and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Meanwhile, in a separate poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP), the results are not far off. Trump is still on the lead with 35 percent support from likely Republican voters. "Donald Trump doesn't seem to have lost any support in South Carolina following Saturday night's debate," Dean Debnam, president of PPP, said.
Cruz and Rubio tied for second place with 18 percent each; Kasich got 10 percent; and Bush and Carson both ended up with seven percent.
The poll also revealed that 29 percent of respondents say they may still change their mind about who to vote. But Trump's supporters, 77 percent of them, are certain about their choice of candidate. Cruz also has 76 percent of solid supporters, and Rubio has 62 percent.
In terms of favorability, 50 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion about Trump, as opposed to the 43 percent who view him unfavorably. One surprising thing about the result, as mentioned in the report, is that Cruz had the lowest favorability ratings of all the Republican candidates. Forty-two percent view him positively while 48 percent think of him negatively. It was also noted that Carson had the highest favorability rating at 68 percent.
