Poll: Trump Down Double Digits to Hillary, Other Republicans Fare Better

More bad news for Trump fans in this week's NBC/WSJ poll:

• Hillary 50% vs. Trump 40% • Hillary 48% vs. Cruz 45% • Hillary 45% vs. Rubio 48% • Hillary 46% vs. Carson 47% https://t.co/CRw99ghZA3
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) December 14, 2015

Of the top four Republican contenders, Trump is the only one trailing Hillary by a statistically significant margin, and the only GOP candidate against whom she hits 50 percent. Rubio leads Mrs. Clinton by three points (and matches her among young voters -- an intriguing but outlying data point), with Carson edging her by a lone point. Ed Morrissey notes that in light of the weird dearth of independents in this polling sample, there's a chance that Rubio, Carson and Cruz's support versus Hillary might actually be stronger than these top line numbers suggest. Why wouldn't that effect apply to Trump, too? Because he fares uniquely terribly among independents, who dislike him even more than they do the likely Democratic nominee. But wait, you may be thinking, aren't you constantly telling us that hypothetical head-to-head polls are mostly meaningless at this extremely early stage? Indeed. What matters far more right now are the fundamentals, like personal favorability. Back to the NBC/WSJ survey:

Trump fav/unfav in NBC/WSJ poll: pic.twitter.com/ZUFCwu2FNw
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) December 14, 2015

That's an exceedingly ugly (27/59) split, with just one percent of voters expressing no opinion. Universal name recognition; bad results. Even if you lump in the "neutral" crowd (low propensity voters, I'd wager) as part of the not-unfavorable coalition, his numbers are still underwater by nearly 20 percentage points. So that's the bad news. The good news for Trump enthusiasts -- aside from the news that he's apparently the healthiest person to have ever roamed the earth, despite having secured a medical deferment from Vietnam -- is that a new Monmouth poll gives The Donald a gargantuan lead in the GOP horse race. According to the survey, Trump attracts 41 percent support, with Cruz and Rubio far behind, at 14 and 10 percent respectively. Carson clocks in at nine percent, and nobody else does better than three percent. The gap between these results and NBC/WSJ's data is, needless to say, yuge. Another positive result for Team Trump is a fresh Q-poll of Iowans showing Trump nudging Cruz by a point in the Hawkeye State. Three recent statewide surveys have showed Cruz vaulting into first place. I'll leave you with this snippet from a

Rush Limbaugh monologue during yesterday's broadcast, which Katie wrote about, in which the host warns that Trump's lefty attacks on Cruz (and,separately, Justice Scalia) are "red flags." Is Rush finally starting to shift his tone? Hmm:

UPDATE: Levin, too?

Levin says of Trump's comments about ethanol: "This is the worst kind of pandering."
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) December 14, 2015

UPDATE II - More good news for Trump:

New WaPo/ABC national GOP poll: Trump - 38 Cruz - 15 Rubio - 12 Carson - 12 Per WaPo, it's the largest Trump margin yet.
— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) December 15, 2015

I discussed the Trump/Cruz feud with Megyn Kelly last night: