Election 2016: Trump Leads Rubio, Kasich In Their Home States, New Poll Shows

While home-court advantage is thought to help get U.S. presidential candidates votes in their state, this election is proving to be the opposite — at least for the Republicans. New Yorker Donald Trump is ahead of Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in both their home states, according to a CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday.

Less than a week before the nominating contests on Ohio and Florida, Trump led Kasich with 41 percent support among those polled, while the Ohio governor had 35 percent. Trump holds 40 percent in Florida, leading Rubio’s 24 percent.

Ohio and Florida have historically been important in presidential elections, and in both states, a majority of those polled said if their home state candidate doesn’t win in those states, they should exit the election altogether. Ohio has 66 delegates up for grabs, and Florida has 99. Both states are a winner-take-all system.

The new polls were conducted from March 2-6, with the Florida poll surveying 313 likely GOP voters, and the Ohio poll including 359 likely Republican voters. Trump has been the overall front-runner in the race to the White House so far, winning in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Despite sustained attacks from his rivals and others in the party, Trump has steamrolled the competition so far. Even though former presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney publicly criticized Trump, Trump won the state with more than 49 percent of the vote.

While Trump has won the hearts of GOP voters across the U.S., some world leaders have shared less sympathetic views of the businessman. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto went as far to say that Trump’s “tone” is similar to that of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini or Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. British Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim travel into the U.S. is “stupid and wrong.”