Donald Trump has opened up a solid lead over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the GOP caucus in Iowa, according to a new poll out Wednesday.
The GOP front-runner tops Cruz 30% to 23% in a Monmouth University poll, gaining 11 points from a similar survey in December. Then, Cruz was up 24% to 19% over Trump.
It’s Trump’s highest number in any Monmouth polling of Iowa, the university said.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has held steady in third place with 16% support among likely caucus-goers. In fourth place, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (10%) is the only other candidate cracking double digits.
Cruz leads Trump in one area: voters’ second choice. Cruz is the second choice of 20% of likely caucus-goers, whereas Trump is 9% of likely voters’ second choice. That matters because in the Iowa caucus format, as voters can change their minds as the night wears on.
Cruz leads Trump among past party voters, very conservative voters, tea party supporters and evangelicals. Trump leads Cruz among newer GOP voters, somewhat conservative voters, non-tea partiers and non-evangelicals, the poll found.
The poll was conducted before Trump announced he would skip the last GOP debate before Iowa votes on Monday. Trump has pledged to hold a separate event Thursday night while the other candidates debate.
Only 15% of voters were either undecided or held only a slight preference for a candidate.
Monmouth surveyed 500 likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers from January 23 to 26 for the poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
