Marco Rubio, of Florida, and behind retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who was in first place, and real estate mogul Donald Trump, who was in the second spot. No other GOP candidates received double digit support in the Monmouth poll.
Advertisement
Carson’s fade is happening nearly as quickly as his rise. “And I’m more confident today about that than I’ve been in a long time”, Christie said Tuesday on Townsquare Media’s “Ask the Governor” radio show. But, the CNN/ORC poll also released, stated that Trump is leading by 13 points in the Hawkeye state. Donald Trump is behind Cruz but in danger of falling into third place.
If Jeb really is the smarter brother, as so many have contended over the years, you might think that he’d let his intellect overrule his emotion and drop out before he is really embarrassed. The Monmouth University poll was only 12/3 through 12/6, so that could be a factor.
The December poll found that 59 percent believe Trump is winning New Hampshire’s primary. According to RealClearPolitics’ current compilations, he does better than Cruz in head-to-head matchups with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, beating her by 1.6 points on average, while Cruz loses to Clinton by an average of 2.5 points.
Still, Carson isn’t the only one who should choose his words carefully in order to be eligible for the first debate in 2016, for which criteria wasn’t announced yet, but we might as well see just five or six candidates attending it: Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Christie. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was second with 14 percent.
Cruz leads among evangelicals and tea party supporters.
While Marshall County Treasurer doesn’t sound like the title of a “big get” when it comes to presidential campaign endorsements, in Iowa, not everything is as it seems.
Political experts have attributed the shift in poll results on GOP candidates in large part to the terrorist attacks in Paris, and how they have made tough talk on foreign policy and fighting the Islamic State highly appealing to would-be voters. Only 20 percent of responded said they’ve locked in on who they will vote for, and 49 percent said they have a strong preference.
With the majority of GOP candidates clustered in the sub-10 percent range in the poll, it’s likely that between now and February there will be a consolidation of voters behind one or two candidates that will make Trump’s current domination of the field look less intimidating.
Cruz won the endorsement of Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, last month.
Advertisement
The poll surveyed 425 likely Iowa caucus-goers and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percent.
