Donald Trump’s support among Republican voters appears to be as deep as his hard-core GOP opposition, suggesting that the forces seeking to block his nomination will have to do more than just prevent him from winning enough delegates for a first-ballot victory, according to a POLITICO analysis of voting and polling data.

Trump has won only about 37 percent of the vote in the GOP primaries and caucuses thus far. But that doesn’t mean the entire 63-percent majority of Republicans who voted against him are resolutely opposed.


National polls show that even as Trump’s image has cratered among the broader electorate, more Republicans have a favorable opinion than view him unfavorably. In the states that have already voted, as many Republican primary voters said they would be satisfied if Trump won the nomination as said they wouldn’t, according to exit polls. Majorities in the large states that voted on March 15 said they would be satisfied with a choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton and wouldn’t consider voting for a third-party option.

And as Republicans barrel toward a fight on the convention floor for the party’s presidential nomination, majorities say that Trump should be the nominee — even if he falls short of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch on the first ballot.

Trump enjoys substantial support among Republicans: He's still the preferred choice of more Republicans nationwide than any other candidate. A CNN/ORC poll last month showed roughly two-thirds of Republicans would feel either “enthusiastic” or “satisfied” if Trump won the nomination. And asked about the possibility of a contested convention, a majority of Republicans tell pollsters, if Trump comes into Cleveland with the most delegates — even if it is just a plurality — he should be the nominee.

Most of the prominent figures in the movement often referred to as #NeverTrump say the main goal is to deny Trump a majority of delegates by simple math. In Wisconsin, for example, that led to a targeted effort not just to drive down Trump’s poll numbers, but also to consolidate anti-Trump voters behind Ted Cruz rather than splinter the vote between Cruz and John Kasich.

Kasich underachieved in Wisconsin relative to his poll numbers – whereas Cruz surged at the end, and Trump captured a share of the vote consistent with pre-election polls. And nearly four-in-10 Wisconsin GOP voters told exit pollsters they would be “scared” if Trump became president.

A post-Wisconsin memorandum from #NeverTrump PAC, authored by GOP digital consultant Patrick Ruffini, laid bare the group’s strategy: Get as much of the anti-Trump vote behind one candidate.

“The results in Wisconsin highlight Trump’s greatest vulnerability in the states still remaining: when anti-Trump voters unite behind the candidate best positioned to stop Trump, they deny him the ability to score the victories he desperately needs,” Ruffini wrote in the memo.

But polls of voters in upcoming states suggest voters there aren’t as strategic as the #NeverTrump set. Kasich and Cruz are running neck-and-neck in three of the states voting later this month – New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania – where Trump could improve his otherwise dwindling chances of clinching the nomination outright.

In New York, Trump’s home state, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Monday showed the real-estate magnate at 54 percent – above the key 50-percent threshold to win all of the statewide delegates. But Kasich (21 percent) and Cruz (18 percent) were clustered close together with only a week until the vote.

In Maryland and Pennsylvania – two of the five states that will vote the following week – the anti-Trump vote is split. In Pennsylvania, the HuffPost Pollster average has Trump leading with 42 percent. Kasich and Cruz combine for 47 percent – but it’s split almost evenly, leaving both candidates well behind Trump. In Maryland, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll last week had Trump at 41 percent, Kasich at 31 percent and Cruz at 22 percent.

"I think we’re entering a part of the calendar that should be pretty favorable to [Trump], and he should sweep all of those states," Ruffini said in an interview, setting expectations for the rest of the month. "He really needs a sweep to even make the argument that he’s still in contention to get to 1,237 [delegates]."

Tim Miller, a senior adviser to Our Principles PAC, another one of the main anti-Trump groups, said that Our Principles is considering getting involved this month in Maryland – in addition to May primaries in Indiana and Nebraska, and California’s June 7 primary.

The anti-Trump efforts bore fruit in Wisconsin, and it’s notable that many of these groups are limiting their involvement in states where Trump is stronger. The results in Wisconsin, where 38 percent of GOP primary voters told exit pollsters they would be “scared” by a Trump presidency, differ from other states that have already voted.

In nine primary states that voted from early February through March 8, Republican primary voters were asked by exit pollsters if they would be satisfied by a Trump nomination. There was an even split, a POLITICO analysis of exit polls shows. According to an average of exit polls weighted by state turnout, 49 percent of Republican primary voters in those 9 states said they would be satisfied if Trump won the nomination, while 49 percent said no.

When that question was tweaked for the states that voted on March 15 to ask whether voters would be satisfied if Trump and Clinton were the nominees, 55 percent said yes across the five states, while 39 percent said they’d consider a third-party candidate.

The magnitude of the resistance to Trump is historically unusual, but it isn’t prohibitive of a Trump nomination, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, which found last month that 54 percent of Republican voters want Trump to be the nominee in the event he falls short of clinching the nod on the first ballot.

“The majority of Republicans are not #NeverTrump, but they’re more against the frontrunner than we’ve seen in past cycles,” said Murray.

Murray stressed that the opposition to Trump isn’t just greater than in past nominating contests – it’s also deeper. In 2012, for example, supporters of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum weren’t openly plotting to wrest the nomination from Mitt Romney on the convention floor as they barnstormed the primary circuit.

“If we go back four years ago, it was clear the Gingrich and Santorum folks would get behind Mitt Romney,” Murray said.

Once Romney won the nomination in 2012, Republicans rallied around him. Romney’s favorability rating among Republicans in public polls spiked after he became the presumptive party nominee.

But the increasing contentiousness of the GOP process – including Trump’s claims that it’s “rigged” against him – increases the chances the party will struggle to unify. If Trump is denied the nomination, his supporters could abandon the party in the general election.

Still, the #NeverTrump contingent feels that Trump's recent performance as a candidate — his falling poll numbers, controversial comments on abortion before the Wisconsin primary and gripes that the insular convention process in Colorado is unfair — has damaged whatever willingness Republican delegates may have felt to give him the nomination if he wins a plurality of delegates.

"I just feel like the notion that there is a great deal of pressure to hand it to him is dramatically lessened given his performance as a candidate and his declining general election numbers. His declining national poll numbers, his declining favorability has really put a damper on that sentiment," said the #NeverTrump PAC's Ruffini. "I think the intention of anyone in the #NeverTrump movement is we’re going to beat him fair and square."

