Despite naysayers who thought Donald Trump's presidential campaign would self-destruct by now, the billionaire is positioned to end the year with a strong lead over the rest of the Republican candidates running in the GOP primary race.

A new CNN/ORC national poll released Wednesday showed that the GOP front-runner had a commanding 21-point lead over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who came in second place among Republican voters. According to the survey, Trump had 39 percent of support, while Cruz trailed him with 18 percent, a 3-point jump from the last CNN/ORC poll in late November.

Ben Carson and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio each dropped in the polls and stood tied in third place with 10 percent.

The poll, which was conducted after the last Republican debate on Dec. 15, also showed that 33 percent of viewers crowned Trump as the debate winner. Twenty-eight percent said that Cruz won the debate, while 13 percent thought Rubio was the champ.

Furthermore, the polling data showed that Trump's Republican-leaning supporters believed that he was the best candidate to handle pressing issues in the nation. Fifty-seven percent said Trump would be the best person to handle the economy. Trump also had a big lead over the other GOP hopefuls when voters were asked to choose the candidate who would be best to handle illegal immigration and fighting the Islamic State terror group.

Although Trump has lead most national polls, a Quinnipiac University national survey released Tuesday found a tighter race between Trump and Cruz. According to the new poll, Trump was in the lead with 28 percent of support, while Cruz was on his heels with 24 percent. That's 8 percentage points higher than what Cruz received in the last Quinnipiac poll.