Poll: Donald Trump leads 2016 GOP presidential pack

Billionaire businessman and reality television star Donald Trump has surged into the lead in the race for the 2016 Republican nomination for the US presidential candidate, a new poll shows.

With almost twice the support of his closest rival, Trump was the favorite for 24 percent of registered Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released on Monday.

The poll shows that Trump has gained a sixfold increase in his support since late May. His popularity is the biggest lead recorded by any Republican candidate this year in Post-ABC News polls.

The 69-year-old has jumped far ahead his closet rivals, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Jeb Bush, former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Walker is in second place, with 13 percent support, and Bush in third place, with 12 percent.

Their next seven rivals - former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Senator Rand Paul, Senator Ted Cruz, former Texas Governor Rick Perry and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie - had support ranging from three percent to eight percent.

Trump has sparked a controversy by denouncing the military record of Republican Senator John McCain, who was captured during the Vietnam War. McCain was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half year, from October 1967 to March 1973.

Speaking at a conservative forum on Saturday in Iowa, Trump said the 2008 Republican Party presidential nominee was only considered a hero “because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured."

Trump has also come under severe criticism for his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants in the US, calling them drug dealers and “rapists.”

During his presidential campaign announcement on June 16, Trump emphasized the need to curtail immigration from the southern border and slammed Mexican immigrants for "bringing crime" to the US.

McCain said on Monday Trump owes an apology to military families for remarks about him. “I think he may owe an apology to the families of those who have sacrificed in conflict and those who have undergone the prison experience in serving their country.”

Jeb Bush called Trump’s comment "slanderous," and Scott Walker said he "needs to apologize." Rick

Perry and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham have suggested Trump should drop out of the race.

“If there was ever any doubt that Donald Trump should not be our commander in chief, this stupid statement should end all doubt,” Graham said.

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