With the first Republican primary to be held on August 6, 2015, with great interest by many to see Donald Trump in his first political debate alongside of career politicians, a snapshot from Real Clear Politics taken on August 4, 2015, shown below, shows Trump dominating all GOP polling.
(Full GOP debate schedule shown at the bottom of the article)
Trump at 23.2 percent has an average of a 10.4 percent lead against Jeb Bush who comes in second with just 12.8 percent and Scott Walker takes third place with an average of 10.6 percent. All other candidates hold a sigle digit rating as seen above.
Interestingly, if you remove the NBC/WSJ poll which was conducted at the end of July with no polling done for August at all yet, Trumps average increases to an 11.8 percent lead.
Individual poll links below:
FOX News
Bloomberg
CBS News
Monmouth
NBC/WSJ
Even more shocking than the numbers is the graph shown below where we see the dramatic rise of Trump from the time of his announcement until the present day.
GOP DEBATE SCHEDULE BELOW, Via Election Central:
August 6, 2015
Fox News Republican Debate
9pm ET - Top 10 Candidates (2 hours)
5pm ET - Candidates outside top 10 (1 hour)
Aired On: Fox News Channel
Location: Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH
Sponsors: Fox News, facebook
Moderators: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace
Rules: Top 10 candidates in an average of 5 national polls
September 16, 2015
CNN/Salem Republican Debate
Aired On: CNN and Salem Radio (Press Release)
Location: Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA
Sponsors: Reagan Library Foundation, CNN, Salem Media Group
Moderators: Jake Tapper, Hugh Hewitt,
Rules: Split field into Segment B (top 10 candidates) and Segment A (remaining candidates getting at least 1% in polls) (Details)
October 28, 2015
CNBC Republican Debate
Aired On: CNBC
Location: University of Colorado in Boulder (Press Release)
Sponsors: CNBC (Press Release)
November, 2015*
Fox Business/WSJ Republican Debate
Aired On: Fox Business Network
Location: Wisconsin
Sponsors: Fox Business Network, Wall Street Journal
December 15, 2015
CNN/Salem Republican Debate
Aired On: CNN
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Sponsors: CNN, Salem Media Group
January, 2016*
Fox News Republican Debate
Aired On: Fox News Channel
Location: Iowa
Sponsors: Fox News
February 6, 2016
ABC/IJReview Republican Debate
Aired On: ABC
Location: St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire
Sponsors: ABC News, IJReview.com (Press Release)
February 13, 2016CBS News Republican Debate
Aired On: CBS
Location: South Carolina
Sponsors: CBS News
February 26, 2016NBC/Telemundo Republican Debate
Aired On: NBC and Telemundo
Location: Texas
Sponsors: NBC/Telemundo, National Review
March, 2016*Fox News Republican Debate
Aired On: Fox News Channel
Location: TBD
Sponsors: Fox News
March 10, 2016CNN/Salem Republican Debate
Aired On: CNN
Location: Florida
Sponsors: CNN, Salem Media Group