By COREY SHIREY
Columnist
Less than a month before the state’s presidential primary, Republican front-runner Donald Trump appears to be losing steam in Oklahoma, according to a poll released Tuesday.
Trump continues to lead an eight-candidate Republican field, with 30 percent of Oklahoma GOP voters reporting that they planned to vote for the New York billionaire, down from 35 percent in a poll released Jan. 23.
“Early on, Trump’s been able to channel the anger and frustration felt among Republicans toward President Obama, but anger and frustration can only take you so far in a presidential race,” said Bill Shapard, founder of SoonerPoll, an Oklahoma City-based firm that conducted the poll.
Meanwhile, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz held steady at 25 percent while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio surged, rising from 10 percent in late January to 21 percent this week.
On the Democratic side, former first lady Hillary Clinton led with 41.5 percent while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders garnered 28.1 percent. But a large percentage of Democratic and independent voters still haven’t settled on a candidate, with 28.1 percent saying they remain undecided just weeks before Oklahoma’s March 1 primary election.
The poll was conducted between Saturday and Tuesday, and included responses from 414 Republicans, 360 Democrats and 22 independents, all likely voters. The poll has a margin of error of 4.81 percent on the Republican side and 5.01 percent on the Democratic side.
Among Republicans, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who came in a distant fourth, continued to slip in this week’s poll, falling from 8 percent on Jan. 23 to 5.7 percent this week. No other Republican candidate drew more than 5 percent support, and 7.7 percent of GOP respondents said they were still undecided.
Trump has failed to gain support as other Republican candidates have dropped out of the race, Shapard said. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee both dropped out of the race since the last poll was released.
On the Democratic side, the poll suggests younger voters preferred Sanders while older voters leaned toward Clinton, Shapard said. Sanders had 50 percent support among voters aged 18-35, while Clinton had just 12.5 percent support in that category. Another 37.5 percent of voters ages 18-35 said they were undecided.
But Clinton beat Sanders in every other age category. Her support was strongest among Democratic and independent voters age 65 and older, where 50.3 percent of voters said they planned to support Clinton, while just 21.3 percent said they planned to support Sanders and 28.3 percent remained undecided.
Other findings
- Trump performed best among self-described moderate to liberal Republicans. Among liberal Republicans, Trump garnered 33.5 percent, and among moderate Republicans, he took 36.9 percent. Cruz led the pack among self-described conservative Republicans, where he received 28.8 percent.
- Sanders performed best among independents, with 51.6 percent support to Clinton’s 9.2 percent. But Clinton held an edge among registered Democrats, with 46 percent to Sanders’ 26.5 percent.
- About 51 percent of female Democratic and independent voters said they planned to support Clinton. Sanders held just 16.8 percent support among women, and 32.1 percent said they were undecided.