POLL: Republican voters love Donald Trump's plan to stop Muslims from entering the US

A new poll out Wednesday found that likely Republican primary voters backed Donald Trump's plan to halt most Muslim travel into the US.

The Bloomberg Politics/Purple Strategies PulsePoll, an online survey, found that roughly two-thirds of those voters supported Trump's plan. A slightly majority - 51% - backed it strongly.

Though the provocative proposal appears helpful to Trump in the Republican primary, it could be a double-edged sword.

An even larger number of Democrats and 50% of all likely general-election voters said they opposed the plan, compared to 37% who were in favor:

Trump ignited a national firestorm on Monday when he unveiled his plan for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out" how the "hatred" within the religion connected to terrorism.

He presented the proposal in the aftermath of last month's massacre in Paris and last week's mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Both attacks were linked to the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS. Trump's campaign said the temporary ban would apply to Muslim immigrants and even tourists.

All of Trump's rivals in the Republican presidential primary said that they disagreed with the proposal, with some of them sharply condemning it as illegal, counterproductive in the fight against the Islamic State, or against American values.