Trump's Republican primary lead keeps on growing

Donald Trump has a big lead in a new NBC News poll of the Republican presidential primary. That’s not news—Trump has led by double-digits in every recent poll of the race. But the details are worth a look, as is the way the NBC News report tries to manufacture a competition that doesn’t show up in the poll.

In April, the same poll found Trump with 46% to 31% ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. That was a healthy lead, but in June, it’s grown substantially. Trump is now at 51% and DeSantis has dropped to 22%. Between those polls, the big development for Trump was 37 federal criminal indictments. The big development for DeSantis was officially launching his campaign. Ouch.

Literally the only candidate other than DeSantis who lost ground in this poll is Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who dropped from 3% to 2%. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott held steady at 3%. Everyone else gained ground—though everything for the third-tier candidates is within the poll’s 4.38% margin of error. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, aggressively taking the Trump-critic ground Hutchinson had hoped to stake out, entered the poll for the first time with 5%, putting him in fourth place behind Mike Pence, who edged up from 6% to 7%.