The Hill News

Real estate mogul Donald Trump is tied for first in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, according to a new poll of Republicans.

Nineteen percent of Republicans named Trump, who's currently flirting with a run for the party's presidential nomination, as their top choice for the nomination, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Another 13 percent said that Trump was their second choice in a nominee.

That level of support is enough to tie Trump with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whom 19 percent of Republicans named as their top choice to face off against President Obama in 2012.

Trump's surge still serves as one of the most interesting -- and most surprising -- developments in the still-early race for the Republican nomination next ! year. A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll pegged him as tied for second place last week, reflecting a growth in his support no doubt served by his high level of media saturation, and professed suspicion that Obama might not have been born in the U.S. Trump scored 10 percent in last month's CNN poll, essentially doubling his support over the course of a month.

Fifty-six percent of Republicans in the CNN poll said they would like to see Trump seek the nomination, a less encouraging figure than for Huckabee or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Seventy-two percent of Republicans said they want to see Huckabee run, while 66 percent said the same of Romney.

The most curious numbers in the poll reflect drops in support for Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich over the past month. Eleven percent of Republicans said they want to see Romney win the nomination, down from 18 percent last month. (Romney formally entered the race on Monday.) Gingrich, mean! while, scored support from 11 percent of Republicans, down fro! m 14 per cent last month.

The poll, conducted April 9-10, has a five percent margin of error for the Republican sample.