Polls suggest Rubio support went to Trump, not Cruz

More than a week has passed since Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s departure from the Republican presidential race, and the latest batch of polls indicate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz misread the race when he called for Rubio to drop out.

Cruz entreated Rubio to leave the race last month, talking party unity and suggesting the Florida senator was hamstringing him in the fight against Trump.

Since Rubio bailed March 15, Cruz’s support has grown an average of 2.6 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics rolling average, from 26 to 28.6 percent.

Counter to Cruz’s suggestion that dislodging Rubio was key to stemming the Trump tide, support for the billionaire businessman ballooned 12 points, from 32 to 44 percent over the same period.

Rubio enjoyed support from about 19 percent of those polled when he left the race, and when you add in the single percentage point Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s support grew over the past week (17.5 to 18.4), most of Rubio’s support is accounted for in current polls.

Another round of Republican primaries passed this week, and Cruz is again calling for an opponent to drop out so he can face frontrunner Trump one-on-one.

“Every vote for (Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump,” Cruz told Bret Baier of Fox News on Monday, adding that Kasich might be “auditioning to be Trump’s vice president.”

Cruz attempted to entice Kasich into dropping out with a position in his own administration in a CNN interview Wednesday, saying "I think (Kasich would) be a tremendous addition to an administration."

Head-to-head polling once supported Cruz’s assertions that he would lead the race if singled off against Trump, but even those numbers have forsaken Cruz as the party falls in line behind Trump.

Head-to-head with Trump, Cruz earns 37 percent support, versus 46 for the real-estate tycoon, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday.

12 percent were undecided.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 4:05 PM with the headline "Polls suggest Rubio support went to Trump, not Cruz."