Free Republic

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, who surged in polls this fall, has seen her support wilt as backers across the board have shifted from her to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. It's part of the candidate merry-go-round, as voters seek the best insurgent champion in the GOP field, much as they did in 2012 when they tested all the alternatives to eventual nominee Mitt Romney. This time, those finicky voters have a more complicated task: They want an insurgent but one who isn't billionaire businessman Donald Trump, who draws his own unique base of support. A former technology company executive, Mrs....

[T]here is NOTHING remotely conservative about Donald Trump and his candidacy. You have to give them a path, a path to citizenship. Where have I heard that one before? I know, Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham and of course every Democrat as well. He’s zero for one there. How about taxes? When Trump ran for president in 1999, he proposed a gigantic wealth tax on the American people, a 14.25% levy that he calculated would raise $5.7 trillion and wipe out the debt forever in one fell swoop—a wealth tax, going into your bank account and pulling out money from...

As usual, Donald Trump’s latest comments are rankling at least one of his opponents. “When you talk about George Bush,” Trump said on Bloomberg TV on Friday morning, “I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.” Challenged by anchor Stephanie Ruhle, he added, “He was president, okay? . . . Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.” On Twitter, Jeb Bush called Trump’s comment “pathetic,” sparking a back-and-forth between the campaigns on social media.

Surveying the populous field of GOP candidates this week, it might seem far-fetched to imagine Jeb Bush as the party’s nominee at this time next year. Since throwing his hat in the ring for the presidency in mid-June, the stalwart Bush hasn’t found a footing in the Republican race. He stumbled awkwardly through Sunday’s interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper and is stuck in fifth place in polls continually dominated by the inexplicable Donald Trump—who on Monday became the longest-lasting “fad” candidate since at least 2004. But before we get too far afield on speculation that Trump will seize the party’s...

The current Republican front-runner has a polling problem. A new Fox News survey shows Donald Trump with a single-point lead on Ben Carson, 24 percent to 23 percent, a gap that is well within the survey’s margin of error and 7 points smaller than it was when the same pollsters asked the question last month.

Spending nary a dime, Donald Trump has leapfrogged a large field of presidential wannabees to take a commanding lead in the race for the Republican nomination for president. Anyone in that position who had unlimited financial resources and who truly wanted to win the nomination would have already unleashed wall-to-wall ads in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and would be assembling a massive ground-game in those states. Why? Because if Trump won those primaries convincingly, it would be all over but the shouting. Such a candidate would also be fielding ads and building organization in the compressed March...

Yes, it is time again to play that game, "What's Happening in The Campaign For Leadership Of The Free World?" A few observations, from the front lines: 1. Last week, a friend reported on an Iowa focus group. Of 31 Republican voters, only one was irrevocably committed to a candidate. The rest split their preferences among two candidates or more. Point: This race is remarkably fluid. Voters are still shopping. 2. There is no impetus for Republican voters to place their final bets soon. They fear their country is in decline, and this may be their last chance to save...

Donald Trump is starting to drop hints about a world in which he is not a presidential candidate. In an interview on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Trump said that he'd quit the race if his poll number started to drop. Talking to the Times, he bemoaned what a Trump-less race would look like: boring. "There’d be a major collapse of the race, and there’d be a major collapse of television ratings," he told the Times's Michael Barbaro. "It would become a depression in television." He's probably not wrong. Polling released in concert with that "Meet the Press" interview shows...

I miss Donald Trump. There, I said it. Mea maxima culpa. Ever since Pope Francis blew into town, nobody seems to care about him. Yes, heÂ’s still leading in the polls. But somehow, no one seems to care. HeÂ’s just kind of sitting there, mired in the low 20s, waiting for someone, anyone, to take his place. Ben Carson made a run at him, but has subsided. Carly Fiorina likewise. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz the same. The whole damn race seems stuck in neutral. O Francis, what hast thou wrought? Apparently a need for some churching up, as Curtis once...

Among the many turbulent moments that Donald Trump contributed to the much-vaunted Republican-primary debate on September 16, one in particular stood out. “I,” Trump griped after Marco Rubio delivered a particularly withering put-down, “am not sitting in the United States Senate with, by the way, the worst voting record there is today . . . I’m a businessman. I am doing business transactions.” At the time, Trump intended this line as a panicked explanation for his ignorance of foreign affairs. But, in the weeks that have followed, he has begun to use it as a cudgel. In the last week...

Twitter feuds, hero bashing, insulting not one but two ethnic groups, ad hominem personal attacks on opponents, nose-to-nose confrontations, just one scandal after another—these aren’t from episodes of Keeping Up With the Kardashians—they’re from the “Trump Saga.” At the outset of the campaign, Trump insulted anyone and everyone: from calling undocumented immigrants “killers” and “rapists” to insulting venerated war hero John McCain. He then moved on to TV host Megyn Kelly, radio host Erick Erickson, Univision reporter Jorge Ramos, the pope, Carly Fiorina and the Fox News Channel. Democrats and Republicans alike didn’t take Trump too seriously when he entered...

No, Donald Trump, This New Poll Is Not ‘Great News’ For You. Not Hardly By Philip Bump September 30 Great news, Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday: The "highly respected" USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows him still leading the Republican field. (Things that are favorable to him enjoy high levels of respect from The Donald.) He added: Enjoy! This is the picture Trump wants to highlight. Since July, he's improved dramatically in Suffolk/USA Today's poll.

Donald Trump’s “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday, and at least one viewer loved it, writing “Brilliant Mr. Trump, he is so Awesome!! And real.” And that viewer was–Trump, himself, who is no stranger to self-congratulations. Donald J. Trump ✔ ‎@realDonaldTrump "@truthshallbe: @60Minutes @realDonaldTrump Been watching!!! Brilliant Mr. Trump, he is so Awesome!! And real." 7:56 PM - 27 Sep 2015 But plenty of others shared the sentiment that the GOP frontrunner did well in the interview with CBS News host Scott Pelley....

Donald Trump is still leading a new poll of Iowa Republicans by a comfortable margin. But as the Republican field begins thinning ever so slightly, the poll provides a warning sign for Trump. The poll, released Tuesday by Public Policy Polling, shows that Trump is still the front-runner in Iowa, the crucial first-caucus state. Trump captures 24% support among likely Republican voters in the state, compared to 17% who support retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina came in third place with 13% in the poll. But the survey also shows that Trump is significantly weaker in a...

Donald Trump is not going to be the leader of the free world. That was the reality check delivered to the reality TV star when he was subjected to a pounding in last week’s Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan presidential library. A summer of bombast from the bumptious billionaire had led to his anti-immigration rhetoric and populist demagoguery lifting him to the top of all the Republican party polls. The debate in Simi Valley, however, brought him crashing back to earth. By the time the dust had settled, Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and the widely...

Real-estate tycoon Donald Trump has a new campaign-trail foe: former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. On Sunday and Monday, Trump has gone out of his way to trash Fiorina's candidacy, blasting her business record, her electoral prospects, and even how she sounds when she speaks. "I think that she's got a good line of pitter-patter. But when you listen for more than five minutes, you develop a tremendous headache," Trump said Monday morning on "Fox & Friends." Trump had a similar line during a Sunday interview on ABC's "This Week." "She's got a good pitter-patter," Trump observed, according to an ABC...

A new poll of Arizona Republican voters shows former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as the big winner in this week's presidential debate on CNN. Summit Consulting Group surveyed 996 likely GOP voters on who they thought won the three-hour debate this week. Forty-six percent picked Fiorina, who touts her business background, as the winner. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was second at 18.2 percent followed by GOP frontrunner Donald Trump with 16 percent. Several online, unscientific post-debate polls were dominated by Trump supporters. ...

Greenville, South Carolina (CNN)—Republican presidential hopefuls were split Friday amid the fallout from Donald Trump not taking issue with a man who, during a campaign event, called President Barack Obama a Muslim and said Muslims are "a problem in this country." Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz refused to criticize Trump or say whether they believe Obama is a Christian, instead slamming reporters for asking about the incident. Jindal said it wasn't a candidate's "role" to correct a questioner -- but also said he would have pointed out the U.S.'s anti-discrimination values. And Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bush emphatically...

The media’s got a fee-vah this morning and the only prescription is this clip. A few random thoughts that you can assemble as you see fit. One: If you believe that PPP poll taken last month, people who think Obama’s a Muslim are not only a majority of Trump’s base, they’re a majority of the GOP overall. Even if you question the numbers, there’s no denying that there are plenty of them out there. Which is to say, there’s no reason to think this guy is a plant just because he’s surprising Trump with a question guaranteed to put...

Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) said on Tuesday that conservatives could only win in 2016 by abandoning GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. “Sane conservatives need to stop enabling him,” Jindal wrote in an op-ed published by CNN. “They need to stop praising him, stop being afraid of him and stop treating him rationally,” he said. “Conservatives need to say what we are thinking: Donald Trump is a madman who must be stopped,” added Jindal, himself a Republican White House hopeful. Jindal argued that Trump is duping voters by seeking to present himself like former President Ronald Reagan on the campaign trail....