“Reports of Donald Trump’s imminent demise as a candidate are clearly and greatly exaggerated. Like a freight train barreling through signals with his horn on full blast, Trump heads down the track towards a possible nomination,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

The insufferable agenda poll pushed by NBC/WSJ (constructed by a political PR firm) is rightly dispatched into the land of outlier irrelevance by a much larger sample (four times larger) Quinnipiac poll (full pdf below) released last night – showing a much different result. The Quinnipiac poll is in alignment with all other recent national polling.

The top-line figures provide further evidence of a continuing trend. As the field is reducing, Trump and Rubio are gaining support while Ted Cruz continues slipping backward.

These results are in line with other national and South Carolina polling and ground reports which reflect the top three race as #1 Trump, #2 Rubio, and #3 Cruz. As a direct result the exasperation of Team Cruz will increase exponentially.

The generalized trend is that South Carolina has becomes increasingly important for Cruz to retain the possibility of a pathway to winning the nomination. Cruz has a strong support base, but the campaign’s strength is also his weakness, too narrow an audience.

Cruz’s antagonistic campaign of religious intolerance is positioned to benefit the least from any remaining candidate exit. The severity of Cruz falsehoods -amid the sunlight of opposing views showcasing them- appears to be having a very detrimental impact.

However, both Marco Rubio and Donald Trump are positioned to benefit from Kaisch, Carson and Bush exits. It should be noted Marco Rubio stands to gain the most.

(Via Quinnipiac) The Donald Trump juggernaut rolls to a 2-1 lead among Republican voters nationwide, with 39 percent, his highest total so far, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida with 19 percent and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas with 18 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 6 percent with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Dr. Ben Carson at 4 percent each. Nine percent are undecided.

This compares to the results of a February 5 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University, showing Trump with 31 percent, Cruz with 22 percent and Rubio with 19 percent.

In the Democratic race nationwide, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has 44 percent, with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont at 42 percent, and 11 percent undecided, unchanged from February 5.

The top three Republicans are closely matched in terms of voter opinion as Trump gets a 62 – 31 percent favorability among Republicans, with 64 – 17 percent for Rubio and 62 – 23 percent for Cruz.

“Reports of Donald Trump’s imminent demise as a candidate are clearly and greatly exaggerated. Like a freight train barreling through signals with his horn on full blast, Trump heads down the track towards a possible nomination,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

[…] Trump has a good chance of winning in November, 77 percent of Republican voters nationwide say, while 61 percent say Rubio has a good chance of winning and 60 percent say Cruz has a good chance.

Looking at key characteristics, Bush leads in one area as 74 percent of Republicans say he has the right kind of experience to be president, with Cruz at 68 percent, Trump at 60 percent, Kasich at 59 percent and Rubio at 54 percent. On other qualities, Republican voters say:

72 percent that Rubio is honest and trustworthy, with 70 percent for Bush, 65 percent for Kasich, 62 percent for Cruz and 60 percent for Trump;

80 percent that Trump has strong leadership qualities, with 69 percent for Cruz, 63 percent for Rubio, 60 percent for Bush and 58 percent for Kasich;

73 percent that Rubio cares about their needs and problems, with 67 percent for Cruz, 66 percent for Bush and 62 percent each for Trump and Kasich;

70 percent say Rubio shares their values, with 69 percent for Bush, 67 percent for Cruz, 60 percent for Trump and 57 percent for Kasich. Clinton – Sanders

(read more)

To provide some context for how the race has shaped, this is what it looked like in December 2015 when Quinnipiac did an almost identical national poll with most candidates still in the race.

Since December, Donald Trump has gained 12 points, Kasich +4, Rubio +2, Cruz +2.

Jeb Bush -1, and Ben Carson has dropped 12.

Interestingly, IF it became a three man race with Trump, Rubio and Cruz, and that’s a big “if”, it looks like the national support would settle in with: Donald Trump around 50%, Marco Rubio around 30% and Ted Cruz around 20%.

Trump (America First populist) around 50%

Rubio (Establishment, old and new) around 30%

Cruz (far-right) around 20%

If you think about that increasingly clarifying data-spread carefully, and if you’ve followed the entire construct of the “splitter strategy” since we initially presented it, you’ll note those stats (percentages) are almost EXACTLY what the GOPe/RNC was projecting all the way back in February 2014 (obviously, sans Trump).

This current reality is what drove the GOPe recruitment for presidential candidates two years ago.