Donald Trump suffers biggest decline in Republican poll

US presidential hopeful Donald Trump's support among Republicans has dropped 12 points in less than a week, marking the property mogul's biggest decline since he vaulted to the top of the field in July, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Mr Trump was the favourite of 31 per cent of Republicans in a rolling poll in the five days ended on Friday. That was down from a peak of 43 per cent registered on November 22nd.

The dip follows criticism of Mr Trump for comments he made in the aftermath of the November 13th Paris attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more.

Following the attacks, he told an NBC News reporter that he would support requiring all Muslims within the US to be registered to a special database, which his critics have likened to the mandatory registration of Jews in Nazi Germany.

Reporter

Mr Trump has also been criticised for flailing his arms and distorting his speech as he mocked a New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who is disabled.

Mr Trump mocked the reporter as he defended his unsubstantiated assertion that during the September 11th, 2001 attacks, he watched on television as "thousands and thousands" of people in New Jersey cheered while the World Trade Center fell.

Mr Trump is not the only front-runner to slide in the latest survey.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has seen his poll numbers drift downward and now trails Mr Trump by more than half, with just 15 per cent of Republicans polled saying they would vote for him in the same poll. As recently as late October, Mr Carson trailed Mr Trump by only six points.

Following Mr Carson, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted Cruz are tied for third place, with more than 8 per cent each.

Following Mr Rubio and Mr Cruz was former Florida governor Jeb Bush, with 7 per cent.

The five-day rolling average sample size ranged from 464 to 347 respondents between November 22nd and November 27th, with a credibility interval of 5.2 to 6.1 percentage points.

Reuters