Washington, Dec 4 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).– Magnate Donald Trump leads a new voter-preference poll of Republican presidential hopefuls by 20 percent over his closest rival, Sen. Ted Cruz.

The new wave of support for Trump comes in the wake of the terror attack in San Bernardino, California, where 14 people died and dozens were injured.

The CNN/ORC survey shows the controversial Trump with 36 percent of support among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, nine points more than he had in the previous study taken in mid-October.

According to U.S. political blog The Hill, Trump recently stated: “[…]whenever there’s a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up.” A similar situation was observed after the deadly ISIS terror attacks in Paris.

In second place with 16 percent is Cruz, whose backing has surged 12 points since the previous poll – he is followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson with 14 percent and Sen. Marco Rubio with 12 percent.

Support has been growing for Cruz and Rubio as the campaign moves along, partly because of how well they did in the candidates’ televised debates.

At the other extreme is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, considered several months ago the favorite to win the nomination and who in this CNN survey managed to grab only 3 percent of voter preference, 5 percentage points less than in October.

Carson, who was tied with and even went ahead of Trump in the polling for several weeks, also appears to be losing ground in this CNN study, which shows him 8 points down from the previous one.

In this new survey, taken Nov. 27-Dec. 1 with a sample of 1,020 adults around the country and with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent, four out of every 10 respondents identifying themselves as Republicans see Trump as the candidate who would be “most effective at solving the country’s problems.”

The New York Times published Tuesday an article that talks about the panic that currently reigns within the Republican Party, “as it becomes increasingly plausible that Mr. Trump could be the party’s standard-bearer.”

“Many leading Republican officials, strategists and donors now say they fear that Mr. Trump’s nomination would lead to an electoral wipeout, a sweeping defeat that could undo some of the gains Republicans have made in recent congressional, state and local elections,” The Times reported. EFE