A tiny group of Republican voters — 4 percent — wants GOP leadership to pick the next presidential nominee in a party fight, believing instead that the candidate with the most delegates going into the July convention should get the job.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that 51 percent of likely Republican voters believe that if the convention starts and Donald Trump, Gov. John Kasich nor Sen. Ted Cruz have the needed 1,237 delegates, then the "party should let the candidate with the highest number of delegates be the nominee."

A third, 34 percent, said that delegates should choose the nominee by voting for whomever they want. And just four percent said party leaders should make the pick.

GOP boss Reince Priebus said no matter what the party and delegates will be making the pick.

"By the way, this is a nomination for the Republican Party," Priebus told 620 WTMJ in Wisconsin. "If you don't like the party, then sit down. The party is choosing a nominee."

The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on March 30-31, 2016 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com