Posted on 11/04/2015 2:43:52 PM PST by conservativejoy
Lot of fanfare about this among the politerati on Twitter (politertwitterati?), who’ve waited four months for hard evidence that Trumpmanias begun to cool. One national poll showing Carson ahead of Trump can be dismissed as a fluke; two showing Carson ahead are interesting, but not quite convincing. An average of four polls showing Carson in the lead, though, is officially fodder for 'trend!' storylines.
What a long, strange trip its been.
Youve got at least three reasons to shrug at that if you’re a Trump fan. One: Carsons not going to be the nominee. He might win Iowa but even that seems hard to believe given what a smart, tight ship Ted Cruzs campaign is running. It could be that Trump has reached his ceiling of support but thats enough to win some of the early states if his competition divides the rest of the electorate among themselves evenly enough.
Two: Matt Bevins shocking landslide last night after trailing in the polls for months gives you a reason (maybe not a compelling reason, but a reason) to think that polls are chronically underestimating outsider candidates like him and Trump. None other than the head of the DGA credited 'Trumpmania' with Bevins surprising win. It may be that both in Kentucky and nationally, theres a critical mass of right leaning 'silent majority' voters whom pollsters don’t expect to turn out on election night but then do, rendering all the polls of 'likely voters' meaningless. The question is, if the extent of Trump’s support is being underestimated, might the extent of Carson’s support be underestimated too?
Three: When push comes to shove, the national polls dont matter. Theyre interesting as a barometer of Republican sentiment generally, but only the state polls mean anything as predictors of individual caucuses and primaries. And Trumps lead in New Hampshire, his strongest early state, is steady as she goes.
Or is it?
The survey of 400 likely [NH] GOP primary voters, conducted Thursday through Sunday, puts Trump at the top with 18 percent support. Carson is on his heels at 16 percent , within the poll’s 4.9 percent margin of error.
Florida Sen. Rubios support more than quintupled, from 2 percent to 11 percent, while New Jersey Gov. Christies support rose from 2 percent to 8 percent. Both candidates are also seeing big jumps in their favorability ratings.
'Underneath there has been some movement,' Koczela said. 'Both Marco Rubio and Chris Christie were perceived as doing well in the debate and have seen their numbers climb substantially from where they were in September.'
'There’s considerable potential now for Rubio to start to clinch the deal,' Scala said, adding that the poll shows Rubio getting high marks from both traditional and tea party-type conservatives.
Rubios favorable rating in the poll jumped 10 points since September to 56 percent. Chris Christies favorable rating jumped 12 points to 51 percent. Trump: Down three points, now sitting on an even 42/42 split. Thats a bad number for his big state. When Republicans were asked who they thought won the debate last week, Rubio also won that handily 27 percent versus 20 percent for Cruz and 13 percent for Christie. Trump finished with just seven percent, tied with Carly Fiorina. But Trump fans dont have to sweat this poll too much either. For one thing, this data bodes well for him:
New Hampshirites are trending towards revolution. Rubio, for all his gifts, is every inch a Bush/McCain politician. He’s not the guy youd bet on when the electorates in 'burn it all down' mode. Beyond that, though, theres good reason to think this polls an outlier. Eighteen percent is the lowest level of support detected for Trump in New Hampshire in three months. The latest Monmouth poll, which was taken over the same post-debate period as this one (and was also a poll of likely voters), had him comfortably ahead of Carson by 10 points at 26 percent. Other recent (but pre-debate) polls have had him at 28 and even 38 percent. And the last WBUR poll in September also had him a bit lower than most other polls did at the time, suggesting some persistent difference in their methodology. Until we see a dent to his polling average in NH, which has him 14 points ahead of the field, its probably best to treat this as noise.
Thanks. I get that. Definitely not trolling, just a bit exasperated with some of the blind support for Trump around here...
Trump stood on the Courthouse steps in NH today and eviscerated Rubio on his credit card problems, his amnesty and his new donor Singer. Its a club and DJ is wielding it. Rubio was a no go anyway with the GOP base. His best ever will be a distant third which is where he is now. He will soon join Jeb in oblivion. Carson will be easy to get rid of. There really is not anybody else to challenge Trump. He’s the next GOP nominee.
Trump can force the media to report on conservative issues. Ted Cruz did invite him to a rally a few weeks ago.
There is obviously a common interest between Cruz supporters and Trump ones, and a lot of people have them number 1 and 2 in vote preferences, just in different orders.
I understand what you are saying. And people thought that Romney would defeat Obama a day before the election too.
I think everyone should consider the possibility that their candidate might lose. Not saying it would be a good thing, just remember a lot of liberals get elected to this country.
Well, read post #4 - interesting info re Carson.
/johnny
‘Definitely not trolling’
Oh, definitely not trolling. You just show up on one Trump thread after another to taunt us. But definitely not trolling.
Rubio singlehandedly destroyed Bush. I wouldn’t underestimate him.
Yup. It's the mark of a highly polarized society. When everyone you know--and, increasingly, everyone you interact with online--supports a candidate, it becomes very hard to imagine that candidate losing....
Well to be accurate Trump put Jebbie on the ropes and Rubio finished him off at the debate freeing DJ up to finish off Kasich. Somebody had to do it. Now Trump will put Rubio out of our misery. :-)
Megyn Kelly isn’t going to like this...
Donald J. Trump â€@realDonaldTrump
Wow! @FoxNews poll just came out. #1 with 26%! Almost as importantly, I am the strongest on economic issues by far! #Trump2016
Bump that!
I wouldn’t mind that. We will find out soon enough. Less then a week.
Shouldn’t you also post a picture of his good friends Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan? How about a picture of Carson doing the PBS special for Mannatech, you know the company he denied having a relationship with?
Cruz has done that, and I gave his campaign money this time and when he ran for Senate just so he could change the dialog.
The left can never change it back, and because of Cruz, the Constitution is what people are thinking about. Even Trump got schooled by Cruz on Constitutional issues.
/johnny
It is hard to believe people are being taken in by snake oil salesman member of a cult. Deception is so strong in this country.
The Kentucky race is exactly what I thought of, too.
The latest election polls were off by 13% so take this with a giant grain of salt. Marxists can manipulate the data.
Pray America wakes
Look for Carson to bomb again in the FBN debate next week. The guy is clueless. He will stumble bum again and then fade some more. All Trump has to do is gently push him along down the bunny trail. :-)
Well, the religion Dr. Carson claims to be a part of has a lot of similarities to Christianity. There are a couple of major differences, but I would hardly call them a “cult”.
I was just curious if people even knew what religion Dr. Carson subscribed to .. and if they did .. was it a problem or not ..??
Most people have ignored my post .. so that can tell me several things: People don’t know the differences in this religion, they don’t have a personal religion they practice, or they were just ignorant of what Dr. Carson supported. Or they just didn’t care.
Still .. I would not call SDA a cult. The only issue I have is that they don’t believe that when you die you go directly to heaven (which is what I believe). They believe you go into “soul sleep” .. and then after Jesus returns to set up His kingdom, they will all be revived and reach heaven.
The Bible clearly says, “... to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”. So, if you say your ultimate source for info is the Bible .. then you should be able to accept that when you die (if you have received Christ as your Savior), you will go immediately to heaven.
But, I still don’t believe they are a “cult”.
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