NBC News & SurveyMonkey Launch Weekly Online Polls for 2016 Presidential Election

NBC News and SurveyMonkey are extending their partnership to launch weekly, scientifically-valid online polls to provide instant and thorough snapshots of voter behaviors and attitudes throughout the 2016 election cycle.

According to the first poll in the new series, released today, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump maintains a sizable lead over the rest of the party's candidates. Among Republican or Republican-leaning registered voters, Trump has 35 percent support compared to 18 percent for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and 13 percent for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Read more: http://nbcnews.to/1VErNl1.

In the Democratic field, former Sec. Hillary Clinton leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by a 17-point margin - 53 to 36 - with only 2 percent of registered Democrat and Democratic-leaning voters supporting former Gov. Martin O'Malley. Read more: http://nbcnews.to/1O2xkPI.

Each weekly poll will draw from a nationally representative sample of several thousand adults 18 and over -- offering unique, immediate insight on attitudinal trends among potential voters. Respondents are randomly selected from the millions of people using the SurveyMonkey platform daily.

Since 2014, NBC News|SurveyMonkey polls have gauged the opinions of hundreds of thousands of Americans. The two organizations are extending their partnership through 2018 to offer the latest insight on current public opinions.

More from the first weekly poll, including a full description of the methodology, can be found here: http://bit.ly/1O89YWB.