Donald Trump Still Leads CA Poll, But Support Appears to Wane

LOS ANGELES, CA - With California poised to become a battleground state for the Republican Party presidential nomination, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll shows support appear to be waning for front-runner Donald Trump.

Trump is still leading rival Ted Cruz in California with 37 percent of GOP voters polled saying they would vote for the real-estate entrepreneur versus 30 percent for the Texas senator.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is a distant third with 12 percent.

“Donald Trump is still the Republican front runner, both in California and nationally, but it appears that there may be a ceiling on his support," said Dan Schnur, director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll and director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “About 35 to 40 percent of primary voters are strong supporters of his candidacy, but there is still great resistance among the majority of Republicans.”

If Trump were to receive the GOP's nomination, 42 percent of likely voters said they would "enthusiastically" support him, 27 percent said they would "reluctantly" support him and another 27 percent said they would not support him.

Part of the reasons for the reluctance stems from the recent violence at Trump rallies. Fifty-four percent of respondents blame Trump for inciting violence with his rhetorics, another 22 percent said supporters inferred support for violence from Trump's speeches on freedom of expression. And 19 percent said the violent incidents were isolated and blown out of the proportion.

The majority of respondents, 65 percent, said Trump should tone done his rhetorics while only 27 percent said the issues are too important to worry about offending people.

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Another cause of concern for Trump is his high unfavorable ratings among likely voters in the state. Seventy-three of likely voters have an unfavorable impression of him versus 23 percent who view him favorably.

Among Hispanic voters, 87 percent have an unfavorable impression of him and only 9 percent view him favorably.

This comes as no surprise. Trump has linked high crime rates to illegal immigration and proposed to build a border wall to keep immigrants out and make the Mexican government pay for it.

"These are the types of things that have kept Trump from expanding his support base," Schnur said. "If he does become the Republican nominee, the fact that so many GOP voters are unenthusiastic or opposed to his candidacy will be a huge obstacle in the general election."

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Both Trump's GOP rivals, Cruz and Kasich, have a higher favorable ratings, 57 percent and 38 percent respectively. For comparison, President Barack Obama enjoys a 65 percent favorable rating among GOP voters in California.

The poll was conducted March 16-23 among 1,500 likely GOP voters with a 2.8 percent margin of error.