New national poll suggests the GOP race has been shaken up

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GOP frontrunner Donald Trump retook the top spot in the latest national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Tuesday — but his competitors are nipping at his heels.

Trump led Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas by three points in the poll, 30% to 27%. Ohio Gov. John Kasich came in third at 22%, an 11-point gain over the past month.

Rounding out the field was Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who was at 20%.

The survey found that the race could become even further scrambled should one rival emerge to take on Trump in a theoretical head-to-head race.

Cruz and Kasich held 17-point advantages over the real-estate mogul in one-on-one matchups, with each up 57% to 40%. Rubio had a 13-point edge over Trump, at 56% to 43%.

The same poll showed Cruz with a two-point advantage over Trump for first place last month, but that was before Trump's string of wins in South Carolina, Nevada, and the Super Tuesday states. That survey also went against the grain of other surveys, most of which showed Trump ahead by double digits. Trump ripped the poll as a "total joke" last month.

Even this time, it served as a stark contrast to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, which showed Trump holding a nine-point lead over Cruz. Kasich received just 13% of the vote in that survey.

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