Poll: Trump Leads GOP Field but Loses Against Clinton

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The sad, mindless state of today's GOP is underscored the latest polls that show that Donald Trump is leading in the GOP clown car field of candidates.  So much for a party that once valued reason, knowledge and intellect.  Nowadays, the GOP is synonymous with racism, bigotry, the embrace of ignorance and angry conservative whites who are terrified by what they see is the erosion of their place of privilege.  The good news is that currently, the Donald loses to Hillary Clinton by a wide margin.  Here are highlights from USA Today:

Donald Trump has surged to the top of a crowded Republican presidential field, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, but the brash billionaire is also the weakest competitor among the top seven GOP candidates against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In the nationwide survey, Trump leads at 17% and former Florida governor Jeb Bush is second at 14%, the only competitors who reach double digits. Trump's edge, which is within the poll's margin of error, is one more sign that his ​harsh rhetoric about immigration and toward his rivals has struck a chord with some voters.

"He's got some backbone," Steve Fusaro, 59, of San Clemente, Calif., who was among those polled, said approvingly in a follow-up interview. "We need a businessman."

But Buxton McGuckin, 19, of Columbia, S.C., who supports Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, expresses alarm at the potential repercussions of Trump's words. "I know he's a conservative and Republican but I mean ... the (stuff) that comes out of his mouth," the audio engineer says.

Trump has gained 6 percentage points since the USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll taken in June; Bush's support has stayed steady.

While he leads the GOP field, he fares the worst of seven hopefuls in hypothetical head-to-heads against former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic nominee. Bush, the strongest candidate against Clinton, lags by four points nationwide, 46%-42%. Trump trails by 17 points, 51%-34%.

That's a wider margin than Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (down 6 points), former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (8 points), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (9 points), Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (10 points) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (13 points).