Donald Trump’s presidential prospects are disintegrating as questions about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate fade, a new poll showed Tuesday.
Trump plummeted from the head of the Republican primary field to fifth-place, tied with long-shot Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, according to a newly-released survey from Democratic-aligned firm Public Policy Polling (PPP).
The 64-year old Trump, who has not yet said whether he will run for the Oval Office, had the support of 8 percent of Republicans, compared to 26 percent just one month earlier.
But that was before Obama released his long form birth certificate to satisfy any lingering questions about his lineage and cut off speculation among some Republican voters about his eligibility for president. Trump was virtually the only potential contender to champion that point of view, having gone so far as to allegedly send personal investigators to Obama’s birthplace of Hawaii.
In the poll, 34 percent of Republicans said they were not sure that Obama was born in the US, down from 51 percent in a February survey, PPP said.
Trump’s fall was a boon for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who led the GOP field with 19 percent and 18 percent, respectively. The result was in line with polls from various organizations taken before Trump’s near-instantaneous rise over the past two months.
Romney, who also ran unsuccessfully for the nomination in 2008, recently announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee. Huckabee, who hosts a weekly show on FOX News and is a contributor at the network, has been more cryptic when it comes to his thought process about a potential run.
The PPP survey was an automated telephone poll of 610 usual Republican primary voters and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
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