Donald Trump is yet again on top of the latest national poll of Republican voters, taking his biggest lead in weeks with 32% of support.
And while Trump has spent recent days feuding with Jeb Bush over former President George W. Bush’s legacy on keeping America safe, the former Florida governor is stuck in the single digits with 7%, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll released Wednesday. That puts Bush in fourth place, behind Ben Carson at 22% and Sen. Marco Rubio at 10%.
“He’s way down in the polls, he’s doing very poorly,” Trump said of Bush on Wednesday morning on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “So he has to attack me to try to get his numbers up.”
It’s still unclear how that strategy will pan out as the poll was in part conducted before the two once again began butting heads Friday when Trump said former President George W. Bush did not keep America safe as the 9/11 attacks happened during his tenure in office. Bush hit back, calling Trump “pathetic” and penned an op-ed published Tuesday slamming Trump for his “dangerous views on national security.”
Bush and Trump have previously flung attacks back and forth, but Bush’s decision to begin hitting back at Trump’s relentless attacks failed to deliver any bump in the polls for the former Florida governor who was viewed early on as the establishment favorite to win the nomination.
Close behind Bush are Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas at 6% and former Fortune 500 CEO Carly Fiorina at 5%.
Fiorina brief surged to second and third place in the polls after her strong showing in the second GOP debate, but her post-debate advantage has since floundered in recent polls.
The poll delivered more good news for Trump beyond his continued lead in the polls.
About four in ten GOP voters said Trump is most likely to win the nomination. Just 15% said the same of Carson and 12% of Bush.
The poll was conducted October 15-18 and surveyed 364 registered voters who leaned Republican and had a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.
The Washington Post/ABC News poll put Trump further ahead of his rivals than three other polls conducted around those same dates. The latest CNN/ORC poll put Trump at 27% to Carson’s 22%; the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll gave Trump 25% to Carson’s 22% and a Monmouth University poll showed Trump leading the pack with 28% to Carson’s 18%.
