Trumpachusetts: Donald Trump Tops Poll of Bay State Voters
Donald Trump at Tyngsborough Elementary School Photo by Garrett Quinn
A new poll of Massachusetts voters suggests New York real estate mogul Donald Trump holds a yuuuge lead over his opponents in the Republican presidential primary.
Trump was the candidate of choice for 47.8 percent of the respondents in a new Emerson College Polling Society poll of likely Republican primary voters. Trump was far and away the front-runner, ahead of Dr. Ben Carson, who came in second with 13.9 percent and Florida Senator Marco Rubio with 11.8 percent.
The Emerson poll is only the third sampling of Massachusetts Republican primary voters since August 2014 according to a Real Clear Politics review and the first poll to include Trump as an option.
The full results of the poll:
Donald Trump 47.8
Ben Carson 13.9
Marco Rubio 11.8
Jeb Bush 7.1
Carly Fiorina 6.5
Ted Cruz 5.1
John Kasich 2.8
Chris Christie 2.3
Undecided 1.4
Lindsey Graham 0.9
Mike Huckabee 0.4
Rand Paul 0.1
The pollsters also sampled likely Democratic voters and found former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is running away with the primary in Massachusetts.
Clinton lead Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders 59-25 while other candidates in the race, such as former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee, polled under five percent. In 2008, Clinton won the Massachusetts Democratic Primary 56-40 but ultimately lost the nomination to a then-little known Illinois senator named Barack Obama.
The Emerson College Polling Society poll of 265 Democratic and 271 Republican primary voters, respectively, includes a margin of error of+/-6% and +/-5.9%. Of course, this poll was conducted with an interactive voice response system, commonly known as robopolling, so take it all with a grain of salt.
Additionally, the pollsters found that Massachusetts voters oppose a possible 2016 ballot question on the legalization of marijuana.
When asked if they approved of legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol, 47.6 percent of respondents said they opposed such a change while 40.5 percent supported the idea. Just 11.9 percent of voters said they remain undecided on the issue. These results run counter to a 2012 vote on legalizing marijuana for medical use and a 2008 effort that decriminalized possession of marijuana statewide. A May 2015 poll of voters by MassINC Polling Group found 49 percent of Massachusetts voters support legalizing marijuana while 42 percent oppose a change.
Another unusual finding in the Emerson poll was strong support for raising the legal age to purchase tobacco products to 21. Over 59 percent of voters said they support a proposed federal law to increase the age required to purchase tobacco to 21 while 27 percent opposed such an effort.
