Poll: Donald Trump leads, but Ted Cruz rises to second
A new national poll finds Donald Trump leading the 2016 Republican presidential field, while Ted Cruz eclipses Ben Carson to move into second, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Ben Carson -- who was ahead of GOP competition in late October -- has dropped 18 points into fourth place.
Twenty-seven percent of Republican primary voters -- an increase of four points since the last poll was taken -- chose Trump, while Cruz picked up 22 percent support. This is a 12-point jump from the last poll. And Marco Rubio has 15 percent, an increase of four points.
Much of Carson's support has gone to Cruz. Carson is currently at 11 percent.
Jeb Bush has 7 percent, and Carly Fiorina, 5 percent. No other Republican attracts more than 3 percent.
The most recent CBS News/New York Times national poll on the Republican field showed that 35 percent of Republican primary voters supported Trump, up 13 points since October, and. Ted Cruz (16 percent) had moved into second place, while Ben Carson, who led the October poll, had dropped to third.
The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Dec. 6-9 of 400 Republican primary voters (by both landline and cell phone), and it has a margin of error here of plus-minus 4.9 percentage points.