Public Policy Polling: Trump Has Strong Lead: Rand Paul at 2%

From PPP:

PPP's first look at the Republican Presidential race nationally in six weeks finds that things haven't actually changed all that much since early October. Donald Trump leads the field with 26%, to 19% for Ben Carson. Trump and Carson were first and second on our last poll as well at 27% and 17% respectively. Also getting solid amounts of support are Ted Cruz at 14% and Marco Rubio at 13%. No one else in the GOP field even gets more than 5%- Jeb Bush reaches that mark followed by Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee at 4%, Chris Christie and John Kasich at 3%, Rand Paul at 2%, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki at 1%, and Jim Gilmore, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Santorum all at less than 1%.

There's only one candidate in the whole field who can really claim momentum compared to a month ago: that's Ted Cruz. He's doubled his support from 7% in early October to its current 14% standing. He's also seen a net 9 point improvement in his favorability rating from +20 (50/30) a month ago to now +29 (55/26). Cruz is leading the field among voters who describe themselves as 'very conservative' with 29% to 24% for Trump and 22% for Carson. On a related note he's also ahead among self described Tea Partiers with 26% to 23% each for Carson and Trump. He is definitely the candidate headed in the right direction with the right at this time.

Besides Cruz there's only one other candidate in the whole field whose support has moved by more than 2 points over the last six weeks. That's Jeb Bush who's headed in the wrong direction- his 5% level of support is only half of the 10% that he had in October. And Bush just continues to get more unpopular- only 27% of GOP primary voters see him favorably to 50% with a negative opinion. We've written a lot this year about his struggles with conservatives and those continue- he has a 22/58 favorability with 'very conservative' voters and only 4% support him for the nomination. But he's also struggling at this point even with moderates- he has a 23/52 favorability with them.