Just 15% Believe Trump is Seriously Seeking Presidency
Most voters seem to think The Donald is mostly a media creation and isn’t a serious contender for the presidency. They also increasingly don’t like him.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 15% of Likely U.S. Voters think Donald Trump is seriously running for president. Sixty-one percent (61%) say the business tycoon and reality TV star is just seeking publicity. Twenty-four percent (24%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Only 28% now have even a somewhat favorable opinion of Trump, down from 39% three weeks ago. Sixty-six percent (66%) view him unfavorably, compared to 53% in the previous survey. The new findings include six percent with a Very Favorable opinion versus 43% with a Very Unfavorable one.
So who does like Trump? The media apparently. Sixty-two percent (62%) of voters believe the media is paying too much attention to Trump’s interest in running for the presidency. Only six percent (6%) think he’s getting too little coverage. Twenty-four percent (24%) rate the media attention to Trump as about right.
A plurality (46%) of voters think Trump is unlikely to file the necessary papers and make the required financial disclosures to formally enter the presidential race, although only 13% say he’s Not At All Likely to do so. Forty percent (40%) say Trump is at least somewhat likely to formally enter the race, with 12% who think it’s Very Likely. Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure.
However, just 22% say Trump is even somewhat likely to win the Republican nomination for president in 2012, including six percent (6%) who say he’s Very Likely to win. Seventy-one percent (71%) see that outcome as unlikely, with 34% who say Trump is Not At All Likely to be the GOP nominee.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide was conducted on May 3-4, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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