Trump's Lead in Illinois HUGE Among GOP Primary Voters: Poll

Illinois Republicans like Donald Trump.

And two times as many likely GOP primary voters prefer Trump to Ted Cruz, according to a telephone survey conducted recently by GOP pollster Joe Caccitolo, with Trump winning 30 percent of the support among Illinois Republicans.

As Trump would say, that lead is HUGE.

The automated telephone poll of 2,177 likely Republican voters took place Dec. 16, exactly three months before the Illinois primary election on March 15, with a 2.5 percentage point margin of error. Politics columnist Lynn Sweet, reporting for the Chicago Sun-Times, notes that half the respondents to the poll were 62 years of age or older. The calls were made strictly to landline phones, too.

Asked “if the primary election for president was held today, for whom would you vote,” the results of Caccitolo’s poll break down this way:

• Donald Trump: 30 percent
• Ted Cruz: 15 percent
• Marco Rubio: 13 percent
• Undecided: 11 percent
• Jeb Bush: 7 percent
• Ben Carson: 6 percent
• Chris Christie: 6 percent
• John Kasich: 3 percent
• Carly Fiorina: 2 percent
• Rand Paul: 2 percent

Geographically, Trump leads everywhere in the Land of Lincoln — in the traditionally GOP-leaning suburban collar counties, in the traditionally arch-conservative downstate counties, and among Republicans in Cook County, home to Chicago’s Trump Tower and the county that turns the state as a whole Democrat blue. It’s Trump, Trump, Trump.

Ben Carson, recently in Lake Forest on a fund-raising visit, ranks behind Jeb Bush in the Illinois survey and continues to see his support nationally drop into the single digits.

Cruz found a bit more support among downstate conservatives, pulling in 18 percent to Trump’s 29 percent.

The only group of likely GOP primary voters in Illinois to dump the 69-year-old Trump in the Caccitolo poll were those between the ages of 26 and 35, who favored Rubio, the 44-year-old Florida senator, by 19 percent to Trump’s 16 percent and 12 percent apiece for Cruz and Christie.

Springfield lawyer Kent Gray is the Illinois campaign director for Trump.

Downstate U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood and State Sen. Mike Connelly of Lisle co-chair Rubio’s Illinois campaign.

Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar and U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the state’s most-respected GOP governor in modern history and a well-respected Republican up-and-comer, respectively, co-chair Jeb Bush’s Illinois campaign. And Bush has visited Illinois several times to attend fund raisers. Yet Bush can’t break 10 percent in the polls.

Caccitolo conducts surveys for the Illinois House Republicans. Follow him on Twitter via @caccitolo.