Polls: Donald Trump stays in front

Ben Carson remains in second place in the GOP field.

By Steven Shepard

11/22/15 10:39 AM EST

New polls released Sunday show Donald Trump leading the Republican presidential pack, with significant leads over fellow first-time candidate Ben Carson in the immediate wake of the terror attacks in Paris.

Among Democrats, majorities continue to favor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

A new Fox News poll shows Trump with a 10-point lead among self-identified registered Republicans over Carson, 28 percent to 18 percent. Trump is up 2 points from the previous poll, conducted two weeks earlier, while Carson ticked down 5 points. It's the first time since mid-October that Carson failed to reach the 20-percent mark in a national, live-caller survey.

A second poll conducted over the same time period, Nov. 16-19, shows Carson over 20 percent. The new ABC News/Washington Post survey has Carson at 23 percent, 9 points behind Trump, who is at 32 percent. Both are unchanged from the previous ABC News/Washington Post poll, conducted in mid-October.

Beyond Trump and Carson, both polls show Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) following in third and fourth place. In the Fox News poll, Rubio and Cruz are right on Carson’s heels, at 14 percent each. But in the ABC News/Washington Post poll, the senators lag behind, with Rubio at 11 percent and Cruz at 8 percent.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — 5 percent in the Fox News poll, and 6 percent in the ABC News/Washington Post poll — is in fifth place in both surveys.

No other candidate breaks 3 percent in either poll —a key threshold, given CNN’s use of polling averages to determine who qualifies for the next debate in December. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s poor showings in Sunday’s Fox News (2 percent) and ABC News/Washington Post (3 percent) have slipped him below the 3.5-percent average needed to qualify for the main stage for now. Paul is currently averaging 3.2 percent.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (3.2 percent national average) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (2.7 percent national average) are running strong in New Hampshire — a firewall that seems likely to boost them onto the main stage despite lower ratings nationally. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (3.2 percent national average) currently would qualify based on her performances in Iowa and New Hampshire —but is perilously close to the bubble in both states.

Among Democrats, Clinton leads Sanders in the Fox News poll, 55 percent to 32 percent —virtually unchanged from two weeks ago. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is at 3 percent.

In the ABC News/Washington Post poll, Clinton’s lead over Sanders is similar: 60 percent to 34 percent, with O’Malley at 3 percent.

One potential trouble spot for Clinton: The Fox News poll shows President Barack Obama’s approval rating ticking down to just 40 percent among registered voters, compared to 54 percent who disapprove. Two weeks ago, 45 percent of voters approved of Obama’s job performance.

The Fox News poll surveyed 1,016 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The margins of error for 366 Democratic primary voters and 434 GOP primary voters are plus or minus 5.1 percentage points and 4.7 percentage points, respectively.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll surveyed 352 registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents and 373 registered Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Results for both samples carry a plus-or-minus-6-percentage-points margin of error, including both sampling error and design effect.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, a new Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll out Sunday shows Trump atop the GOP field there with 22 percent. That’s well ahead of the other candidates: Rubio at 11 percent, Carson at 10 percent, Cruz and Kasich both at 9 percent, Bush at 8 percent, and Fiorina and Christie at 4 percent.

But that survey doesn’t appear on the list of qualifying polls issued last Friday by CNN, the sponsor of the Dec. 15 debate in Las Vegas. While it is a live-caller survey like the other polls CNN is using, neither the Boston Globe nor Suffolk University appear on the list of approved organizations released by CNN.

The Boston Globe poll was conducted Nov. 17-19, surveying 500 likely Republican primary voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

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