“He’s right now for the oil and I understand it, oil pays him a lot of money, he’s gotta be for oil, right?” commented Trump. Carson was at 28 percent then, and Cruz was at only 10 percent.
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The Winthrop poll had Trump at 24 percent, with Cruz in second place at 16 percent. And Trump, in turn, has spared Cruz from the missiles he’s aimed at almost every other rival.
The media has a really hard time with the racism of Trump’s hardcore supporters, but this isn’t even a close call.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush remains in fifth place, up a percent from October, at 6 percent.
Marco Rubio, who was second to Trump in national polls recently, was dispatched as a “lightweight” who drinks too much water – a reference to his State of the Union rebuttal speech in 2013 where he awkwardly took a sip from a bottle of water on air after appearing to suffer from bad dry-mouth.
Trump’s high support in Iowa, according to previous polls by the group was 23 percent.
While nearly two thirds (64%) of Republican voters said they were not offended by Trump’s remarks earlier this week, 41% did acknowledge that the comments could have a negative impact on his presidential prospects, Reuters said.
“If we win like I think we’re going to win – because we have such a great lead – honestly, it’s not going to matter”, Trump said of the establishment’s sentiments.
This poll result will play a role in determining whether Paul is on the main stage for the Las Vegas debate Tuesday night, or if he’ll be with the underdogs in the undercard debate. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
Last week, a Monmouth University poll put Cruz in the top spot for the first time – at 24 percent to Trump’s 19 percent among likely caucus-goers. John Kasich gathered two percent and Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum register with just one percent. Trump says that if he’s elected president, he’ll know within six months whether he can achieve an elusive peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians, one of the world’s most vexing challenges.
There are two other nuggets in the poll which are good news for Cruz.
While Trump introduced new attacks against Cruz on Friday night, he also offered some of his usual words of praise – if in a backhanded manner.
Donald Trump on Friday launched his first attacks against Ted Cruz, questioning his appeal to evangelical voters and his commitment to ethanol subsidies in the first blasts by the GOP front-runner against his political ally. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
The Iowa caucuses are in 50 days.
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On Friday, Mr Cruz posted a conciliatory tweet calling Mr Trump “terrific”.
