Trump Gets Bounce, but GOP Still Divided
Cruz's favorability among Republicans plummets after refusal to back Trump
Despite Donald Trump’s post-convention bounce in the polls, Republicans still think the party is divided and almost half prefer a different candidate than Trump, a new poll shows.
A CNN/ORC poll released Monday finds that about a quarter of Republicans believe that the GOP won’t unite behind Trump before Election Day while 49 percent think the party is not united but will be by November.
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But even though the party appears to be divided now, Sen. Ted Cruz’s “vote your conscience” speech lost him considerable support among Republicans.
Going into last week’s Republican convention, 60 percent of Republicans had a favorable view of Cruz. But after the Texas senator refused to endorse Trump, only 33 percent of Republicans now have a favorable view of him.
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Although the party is not completely sold on Trump, the CNN poll has him ahead of Hillary Clinton.
In a head-to-head matchup, Trump leads Clinton 48 percent to 45 percent. The real estate mogul maintains his edge even when the poll takes into account third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. In that scenario, Trump leads Clinton 44 percent to 39 percent with Johnson coming in at 9 percent and Stein pulling in 3 percent.
The poll was conducted July 22-24 among 882 registered voters and had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.