A majority of Republican voters say Donald Trump is the best candidate to win the general election next November, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Monday.

Seventy percent said Trump has the best chance, 60 percent chose either Ben Carson or Jeb Bush as the best person to win the election.



Just over half of Republican and leaning-Republican voters said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, would have the best shot of winning the election.

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None of the other candidates is viewed as a strong general election choice by a majority of GOP voters, the poll found.

Nearly two-thirds said they view Carson positively and 58 percent said the same of Trump. Just under half gave Bush a positive rating. Trump, however, also received the highest negative rating among the candidates: 57 percent.

Nearly 80 percent of Republicans and those who lean GOP said they prefer an outsider candidate, while under a quarter said they favor someone with experience in Washington.

More than three-quarters said they prefer a candidate with private sector experience and under a quarter favor someone with experience holding elected office.

A recent CBS News poll also found 35 percent of primary voters said Trump had the best chance of winning the general election, and 18 percent said the same of Carson. And for the Democratic field, nearly 60 percent of Democratic voters said Hillary Clinton has the best chance of winning the general election.

Two recent Iowa polls found more GOP voters there now support Carson over Trump for the nomination.

A Battleground Tracker poll released over the weekend by CBS News found Trump and Carson are tied in Iowa at 27 percent while Trump maintains a big lead in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The AP-GfK poll surveyed 1,027 adults between October 15 and October 19 with a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.