NASHVILLE - Tennessee Republicans are cottoning up to GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump with 32.7 percent of self-described Republican voters, saying in a new survey the billionaire businessman and TV reality star is their man.
That was the highest percentage of support for any of the GOP hopefuls, according to the Middle Tennessee State University poll. The next highest category for Republican voters here was undecided: 28.1 percent said they weren't sure for whom they would vote.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had 16.5 percent support while retired surgeon Ben Carson had 6.6 percent and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., had 5.3 percent.
It goes downhill after that.
The MTSU poll surveyed 600 registered voters and included both Democrats and Republicans. The overall margin of error was four percentage points plus or minus.
Not everything was great for Trump, though. About one out of four of those surveyed, the largest segment being Democrats, said they wouldn't support Trump as the nominee.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam told reporters following a speech to the Tennessee Press Association he had not seen the MTSU poll, but the findings come as no surprise.
"We had done a poll a month or so ago and that's what our's showed, too," Haslam said.
Asked if he could back Trump as the GOP's nominee, Haslam said, "We'll support the nominee when we have one, but we're a long way from having one."
Haslam has not specifically endorsed a candidate, but in the past has voiced a preference for a governor to be the nominee.
After participating in an earlier TPA panel, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, the Republican Senate speaker, told reporters his polling shows Tennessee voters are "just really upset with government."
And Ramsey said Trump has tapped into that and has been helped along by his take-no-prisoners style.
"If I predict today, he's the next president," Ramsey said. "I do. I'm not taking sides. If he wins Iowa, it's over."
Meanwhile, 47 percent of self-described Democrats backed frontrunner Hillary Clinton while her main rival, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., received 15 percent and another 26 percent said they didn't know.
But 50 percent of Tennessee voters, most of them Republicans, named Clinton as the least likely candidate they'd support for president.
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com, 615-255-0550 or follow via twitter at AndySher1.