Poll: Trump edges Kasich in Pennsylvania

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has a small lead over John Kasich in the Pennsylvania GOP primary, a new poll finds.

A Franklin & Marshall College poll released Thursday found Trump taking 36 percent to Kasich’s 33 percent. That’s within the poll’s 4.7 percentage point margin of error.

{mosads}Ted Cruz is in third place, at 20 percent, while 17 percent remain undecided.

Kasich cannot mathematically win the nomination outright. Even if he wins all of the remaining outstanding delegates, he’d fall short of the 1,237 needed to secure the nomination before the convention.

But the Ohio governor continues his run in an attempt to block Trump from getting to the magic number, even as many Republicans have called on him to drop out.

Kasich has argued that the map becomes more favorable for him going forward, and that he’s better equipped than Cruz to challenge Trump in some upcoming contests in the northeast, such as Pennsylvania.

There are 71 delegates up for grabs in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary on April 26, although 54 will go to the convention unbound to any candidate.

Trump only needs to win about 55 percent of the remaining delegates to win the GOP nomination and avoid a contested convention.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has a big lead over Bernie Sanders, 53 percent to 28 percent, with 11 percent saying they’re still undecided.

Clinton would beat both Trump and Cruz by double-digits in a head-to-head match-up in the general election in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has not gone for the Republican presidential candidate since 1988.

The survey did not test Kasich against Clinton in the state, but national surveys have shown the Ohio governor typically does the best against Clinton one-on-one.

The Franklin & Marshall survey of 828 registered voters in Pennsylvania was conducted between March 14 and March 20 and includes 408 Democrats, 312 Republicans and 108 independents.

It has a 3.3 percentage point margin of error overall, with a 4.7 percentage point margin of error for the GOP contest and a 5.4 percentage point margin of error for the Democratic race.