Rutgers Poll: Trump Trouncing Christie in New Jersey

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is not only leading all national and state polls, but he's trouncing his other GOP opponents in their own states as voters soundly turn against established government leaders in favor of the New York real estate billionaire.

On Thursday, the trend continued, with a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll in New Jersey showing Trump soundly defeating all challengers and coming in several points ahead of Gov. Chris Christie. The numbers in the poll are as follows, reports The Record:

Trump, 32 percent
Ben Carson, 13 percent
Marco Rubio, 13 percent
Ted Cruz, 6 percent
Carly Fiorina, 5 percent
Chris Christie, 5 percent
Jeb Bush, 5 percent
John Kasich, 2 percent
Mike Huckabee, 1 percent
George Pataki, 1 percent
Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal and Rand Paul, less than 1 percent
Graham and Jim Gilmore, 0 percent

Christie's numbers dropped from 12 percent in August, according to the poll, while Trump's rose, from 21 percent.

Ashley Koning, assistant director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, said Christie's job performance has contributed to his lower numbers.

"The voters who know him best blame not his competition but what Christie himself is doing — or not doing — for New Jersey," she said.

Republican state Sen. Michael Doherty, who announced his endorsement of Trump on Wednesday, said he thinks the front-runner is "resonating with the voters and he's saying things that people want to hear him say."

The poll also found that 67 percent of New Jersey residents think Christie should stop his campaign for president. Doherty said he does not agree, but he does think that Christie has hawkish views on foreign affairs that differ from his domestic agenda.

But Trump is also defeating other GOP candidates in their own states, upending the convention wisdom that presidential politicians generally do well at home.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows Trump holding double-digit leads against both Bush and Rubio, with Trump at 28 percent, Rubio at 14 percent, and Bush at 12 percent.

Trump is also leading in Florida over Rubio and Bush among Hispanics, a group with which both Florida leaders share ties, reports Breitbart. According to a September Public Policy Polling survey, Trump defeated Bush among Hispanics by 37 to 29 percent, and defeated Rubio by one percentage point.

Bush's wife, Columba, was born in Mexico, and Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants, and Trump has drawn fire for his comments advocating a huge wall to be built along the U.S.-Mexico border and calling for the deportation of all 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, making his win in Hispanic-heavy Florida even more surprising, Breitbart noted.

Trump is also defeating Ohio Gov. John Kasich, even though the Republican governor has been enormously popular among his own state's residents, reports The Columbus Dispatch, reporting last week on a Quinnipiac Poll that focused on Ohio and two other swing states, Florida and Pennsylvania.

The numbers were:

Trump, 23 percent
Carson, 18 percent
Kasich, 13 percent
Cruz, 11 percent
Fiorina, 10 percent

"Gov. John Kasich's big card was his enormous popularity in Ohio, generally considered the most important swing state in the November election," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

"But with Trump zooming well past him in the Buckeye State and Kasich's numbers in Florida and Pennsylvania in low single digits, the Ohio governor's campaign is going in the wrong direction," Brown said.

Graham, who has represented South Carolina for several years, recorded an embarrassing defeat in a CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday that gave Trump 36 percent, compared to 5 percent for Graham.

Like Christie, his own state's voters think he should pull out of the race, according to a poll released last month by Public Policy Polling, which showed that 78 percent would like him to leave the race, compared to 15 percent who think he should stay in. Further, the poll showed that South Carolina voters are not happy with Graham's aggressive campaign against Trump.

Graham has never lost in South Carolina winning the state House once, the U.S. House five times, and the Senate three times, but state conservatives are not enamored with him, Furman University political science professor Brent Nelson told The Boston Globe earlier this year.

Many say he's too moderate, because he strongly supports immigration legislation, and South Carolina state Sen. Lee Bright, who challenged Graham for the GOP primary nomination for the Senate last year, said that even though he is the favorite son, "I think he is going to have a tougher time winning in South Carolina than he has ever before. In the past he has just outspent people like he did me almost 30-to-1.

"I think this election is different and that he will do worse in South Carolina than expected, and he will do better in New Hampshire than expected."