http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/poll-gop-voters-unite-trump-221144Poll: Majority of Republicans want the party to unite behind Trump
By Nolan D. McCaskill
03/23/16 11:00 AM EDT
A majority of Republican and Republican-leaning voters believe the party should unite behind Donald Trump at a contested convention, according to a national Monmouth University poll released Wednesday.
The New York billionaire won another 58 delegates Tuesday with a decisive victory in Arizona, putting him within 500 delegates of securing the GOP nomination outright. But should Trump fail to accrue the necessary 1,237 delegates, 54 percent of those polled said the party should back Trump for the nomination anyway. More than a third said the delegates should nominate another person, and 7 percent were unsure.
Of those who said someone else should prevail at a contested convention, 33 percent favored Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and 23 percent said they would like to see Ohio Gov. John Kasich win the nomination. Others receiving support were Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida (10 percent), retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (5 percent), 2012 nominee Mitt Romney (4 percent), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (3 percent) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (2 percent). Eighteen percent said they didn’t know.
Trump has suggested his supporters would riot if he were to go into the convention just shy of the 1,237 mark and not leave as the nominee. He also predicted his voters would sit out the general election if another nominee were to emerge from the convention.
But 43 percent of Trump supporters said that if someone else were nominated in that scenario, they would still vote for the GOP nominee in November, while 27 percent said they wouldn’t vote in the presidential election if Trump weren't the nominee. Just 7 percent would support the Democratic nominee, and 13 percent would back a third-party candidate.
The real estate mogul maintains his months-long run atop national polls, garnering 41 percent support in the latest survey. Cruz follows at 29 percent, with Kasich at 18 percent. Four percent are still undecided.
An overwhelming 95 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters have either seen or heard about the front-runner’s confrontations with protesters at his rallies. But voters are divided on who’s to blame — 44 percent place equal blame on Trump supporters and protesters, while 26 percent fault protesters and 23 percent put the onus on supporters.
The Monmouth poll of 817 Republican and Republican-leaning voters was conducted via telephone March 17-20 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
