Donald Trump speaks during a rally at JetSmart Aviation Services on Sunday in Rochester, N.Y. | AP Photo Poll: Majority of Trump supporters would vote for him as independent

A majority of Donald Trump’s supporters would back the Republican presidential front-runner if he were to run as a third-party candidate, according to a Suffolk University/USA Today poll released Monday.

Fifty-six percent of Trump backers would support him even if he ran as an independent in the general election, while 28 percent said they wouldn’t.


The real estate mogul dominates his Republican rivals in the national poll. He tops the survey with 45 percent support, followed by Ted Cruz at 29 percent and John Kasich at 17 percent, with 8 percent of likely GOP voters undecided.

Six in 10 Republicans would support the nominee, though. Nine percent said they would seriously mull supporting a third-party candidate, 7 percent said they would sit out and another 7 percent said they would vote for the Democratic nominee.

But Republicans are split on whether they think the process to select the nominee will be fair. Forty percent said that if their candidate loses the nomination, it will be because the system is stacked against that person, while 38 percent maintained that their candidate would lose fairly.

Republicans are also largely split on whether the front-runner heading into the convention should be the nominee or if that decision should be left up to the delegates. While 47 percent supported giving the nomination to any candidate who holds a clear lead, another 41 percent said it should be up to the elected delegates to decide.

Regardless of how that person should be selected, Republicans overwhelmingly (67 percent) rejected the notion that someone who hadn’t run a campaign should have any chance at the nomination.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton holds a narrow lead over Bernie Sanders, 50 percent to 45 percent with 4 percent of likely Democratic voters undecided.

Nearly 70 percent would support the Democratic nominee regardless of who it is, though just 40 percent believe if their candidate loses it, he or she would lose fairly, while 38 percent said it would reach that outcome because the system is unfair.

Less than a fourth of Democratic voters support the idea of having superdelegates, an unelected delegate who is free to support any candidate. Six-in-10, however, believe that whoever has the most pledged delegates should win the nomination.

Despite the uphill battle he faces, Sanders has vowed to fight on to the convention, and a majority of voters believe he should. Only 37 percent said the Vermont senator should withdraw if Clinton reaches the requisite number of delegates to clinch the nomination.

In hypothetical general election match-ups, Sanders performs best against the Republicans. He beats Trump by 15 points (52 percent to 37 percent), Cruz by 12 (50 percent to 28 percent) and Kasich by 1 (44 percent to 43 percent).

Clinton tops Trump by double digits (50 percent to 39 percent) and Cruz by 7 (49 percent to 42 percent) but loses to Kasich (41 percent to 46 percent).

Half of the voters surveyed said they think Clinton will win the White House in November, while roughly a quarter named Trump. Regardless of who they plan to support, 46 percent of respondents said Trump couldn’t beat Clinton in a general election, a statement 40 percent disagreed with.

The national survey of 1,000 voters was conducted April 20-24 via telephone. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points overall. The margin of error for the Republican sample is plus or minus 5.7 percentage points and plus or minus 5.1 percentage points for the Democratic sample.