Trump GOP Front-Runner in Latest Poll

For those who have grown tired of all the Donald Trump media buzz of late, things are about to get worse.

A new poll out from Rasmussen Reports finds that the reality star/real estate tycoon is now the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Among “likely” GOP primary voters, 19 percent said they currently plan to vote for Trump. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee came next, with 17 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Sarah Palin and New Gingrich rounded out the top five with 9 percent each.

The rest: Ron Paul (8 percent), Tim Pawlenty (5 percent), and Mitch Daniels (3 percent). Five percent said they’d vote for someone else, and 11 percent said they were undecided.

The poll was conducted Tuesday, one day before President Obama caved to “birthers” and began circulating his long-form birth certificate in a bid to convince skeptics that he was born on U.S. soil.

Trump quickly took credit for forcing Obama's hand, but it remains to be seen if that will score him any additional points among Republican voters, a growing number of which had expressed birther leanings prior to the release.

Back in January, before Trump latched on to the “birther” talking points, the GOP race looked very different. Romney was out in front with 24 percent of the votes, followed by Palin (19 percent), Huckabee (17 percent), and Gingrich (11 percent).

This week’s poll also shows that Trump is the most popular with primary voters who consider themselves part of the Tea Party. He was their top choice with 22 percent of the vote compared with the 16 percent he earned from non-members.

Meanwhile, Romney was the top choice among those Republicans who don’t consider themselves Tea Partiers. Huckabee, unsurprisingly, is most popular with evangelical Christians.