GOP front-runner Donald Trump (Photo: Twitter)

Donald Trump, painted by mainstream media and those who oppose him as a darling of the right wing, the anti-Muslim and the racist, nonetheless scores big with independents, moderates and even some Democrats, polls and surveys show.

Here’s what Public Policy Polling found: “Republicans really need Donald Trump to stick by his pledge not to run next year as an independent if he loses the GOP nomination. He gets 23 percent in a three way contest with [Hillary] Clinton and [Sen. Marco] Rubio, and takes Clinton from trailing Rubio by seven to leading him by six at 39-33.”

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Further, PPP finds Trump wins 20 percent “in a three way contest with Clinton and [Ted] Cruz, and takes Clinton from trailing Cruz by three to leading him by eight at 41-33.”

And the polling agency’s conclusion?

“Trump running as an independent could be pretty much fatal to Republican hopes of winning next fall,” PPP writes.

Interestingly, even some Democrats see Trump as not just a viable candidate, but one whom they’d support at the polls. In August, the Washington Post reported on a campaign event outside the Flint Assembly Plant in Michigan where those in the crowd of typically Democratic voters nonetheless expressed admiration for Trump.

“A lot of what he says hits a chord with me,” said Jerry Hubbard, a former auto plant worker in the area who lost his job when the factories folded, the Washington Post reported. “Immigration and jobs going to China – this area’s really suffered from that. I just like somebody that stands up for what he speaks about.”

The American Spectator suggested similarly that same month, writing of Gallup presidential campaign poll results beneath the headline, “Are Reagan Democrats Becoming Trump Democrats?”

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The article concludes: “There is a long, long way to go in this campaign. But one suspects that Donald Trump – as was true in that blue collar, auto-making state of Michigan the other night – is in the process of demonstrating just what Ronald Reagan once demonstrated to great effect. Namely? Namely that having once been a Democrat is in fact nothing but an asset for a potential Republican nominee for president. The kind of asset that produces landslide Republican victories.”

A month later, in early September, InfoWars wrote a piece titled, “Democrats Say They Will Vote for Trump: Political Class Firewall Endangered,” citing a marketing survey that showed 28 percent percent of Alabama Democrats planned to vote for Trump.

And in November, a poll of likely primary voters in Georgia from SurveyUSA commissioned by 11Alive News out of Atlanta found Trump led the Republican pack by 11 points with moderates, and by 20 points with those of more moderate financial means and less education.

Trump himself hasn’t done much to overturn the idea he’s loved by Democrats.

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American Thinker reported this week in a piece entitled “Is Trump a Democrat?” that the billionaire businessman has long held a cozy relationship with those on both sides of the political aisle, including with the Clintons.

“His generosity has extended to other Democrats aside from the Clintons,” the American Thinker piece continued, pointing to political donations to various Democrats and a “camouflage [of] his past views that read as if they came straight off the Democratic Party platforms over the years.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s own informal insider pollsters – his family members – cite the billionaire’s ability to reach a wide range of voters as one of his key positive traits.

Eric Trump, during a Fox News interview with host Bill Hemmer this week, said: “I walk by a building and a doorman will come out [and say], ‘Tell your father our entire building is voting for him.’ It crosses party lines. Oftentimes, union workers or blue collar people are coming out, saying, ‘We want to vote for you. You are all-American. You are a patriot.’”

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