About a quarter of people surveyed said they would be ‘proud’ if Trump became president, and both leading Democrats would beat him in election, poll says

Half of US voters said they would be “embarrassed” if Republican frontrunner Donald Trump were elected president while just under a quarter said they would be “proud” to have the billionaire real estate mogul as their commander-in-chief, according to a Quinnipiac poll released on Tuesday.

The divisive candidate, who has upended the race for the White House with his flagrant disregard for the norms of party politics, has continued to hold a commanding national lead over the field of Republican presidential contenders, with 28% support just six weeks before the first votes are cast in the Iowa caucuses, Quinnipiac University national poll found.

The poll also showed a divide in those who say they would be “embarrassed” by a Trump presidency along lines of gender, age and political ideology. Six in 10 female voters said they would be “embarrassed” to have the billionaire as their president compared to four in 10 male ones.

Among 18- to 34-year-old voters, 73% said they would be “embarrassed” by Trump being president compared with 13% who said they would be “proud”.

Meanwhile, 47% of independents said they would be “embarrassed” by Trump compared with 44% Republicans who said they would be “proud” of him.

By comparison, 35% of voters said they would be “embarrassed” if Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, were elected president, compared with 33% of voters who said they would be “proud”.

The poll also found that both leading Democrats would beat Trump in a hypothetical matchup, were a national election to be held today. Clinton would best Trump by seven points. And Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is trailing Clinton in the Democratic primary, would defeat Trump by 13 points.

In the race for the Republican nomination, Texas senator Ted Cruz is closing in on Trump with 24% support – his highest national poll figure yet, according to the survey. Recent polls have showed the party firebrand surging in Iowa as conservative Christian leaders have begun to coalesce around him.

“Half of American voters say they’d be embarrassed to have Donald Trump as their commander-in-chief and most Americans think he doesn’t have a good chance in November, but there he is, still at the top of the Republican heap,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll, said in a statement.

“Hillary Clinton tops him. Senator Bernie Sanders hammers him and Senator Ted Cruz is snapping at his heels. Can a candidate that half the American electorate thinks is an embarrassment win in November?”

The Quinnipiac poll was conducted between 16 and 20 December and has a margin of error for all registered voters of +/- 2.9 percentage points.