April 14, 2016
Donald Trump is likely to sweep the upcoming primary election in Pennsylvania, but he won't enjoy unanimous support from Republicans in the general election, according to a new poll from Monmouth University.
Forty-four percent of likely Republican primary voters in Pennsylvania support Trump, while 28 percent support Cruz and 23 percent support Kasich.
Pennsylvania's delegate system for Republicans is unusual because 17 delegates will go to the winner of the primary, but 54 delegates still will be free to vote for whomever they want. The Keystone State's unpledged delegates have been critical to deciding past GOP conventions and will likely play a big role in 2016 as well.
“It looks like Trump should be able to bank the 17 statewide delegates in Pennsylvania. The real question is how the directly elected district delegates will vote at the convention in July,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
Another finding from the poll might spell trouble for the GOP in the general election. Only 72 percent of Republican primary voters said they would support Trump in the general election against Hillary Clinton — in fact, 9 percent would rather vote for her instead. Seventy-five percent would support Kasich, and 70 percent would support Cruz.
In comparison, a mid-March New York Times poll found that 90 percent of Democratic primary voters who support Bernie Sanders and 89 percent of such voters who support Hillary Clinton would still support the other candidate in a general election. However, another poll from McClatchy-Marist found that 25 percent of Sanders supporters would not support Clinton.
Also, did you know that Kasich was actually born in Pennsylvania? Do you care? If the answer is no, you're just like most of the state. Forty-four percent of likely voters didn't know that Kasich was born here, and 95 percent said this fact had no bearing on whom they would vote for.
The poll was conducted over landlines and cellphones from April 10 to 12 and had a margin of error of +/- 5.6 percent. It involved 303 Republican voters who either registered recently, voted in one of the last two primary elections or voted in both of the last two general elections.
View the rest of the poll here.
