Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has pulled into a statistical dead heat with front-runner Donald Trump, a new Reuters/Ipsos national poll showed on Tuesday.
Cruz's gains mark the first time since November that one of Trump's rivals has threatened his lead in support among Republicans, noted Reuters.
The gains coincide with recent missteps by Trump that include a gaffe about abortion and the arrest of his campaign manager on battery charges.
Cruz got 35.2 percent of support to Trump's 39.5 percent, the poll of 568 Republicans taken April 1-5 found.
Reuters notes that Cruz and Trump were also briefly in a dead heat early last week. But as recently as a month ago, when Senator Marco Rubio was also still a candidate, Cruz trailed Trump in Reuters/Ipsos polling by about 20 points.
Ohio Governor John Kasich, the only other Republican still in the race for the party's nomination, placed third in Tuesday's poll with 18.7 percent.
The poll comes as Cruz appears poised for victory in Wisconsin's nominating contest on Tuesday, according to polls in the state.
Trump dismissed concerns about a loss in Wisconsin, saying, according to Reuters, "I think we're going to do very well in Wisconsin."