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If we have a President Carson, guess Bill Clinton will have to step aside being he is currently the "Undisputed First Black President". And then again we still have Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln in the running. You can already envision this argument come later in 2017 when the GOP will hold the bragging rights to "The First Black President". Dr. Ben Abraham Carson !!!

During his long-shot bid for a U.S. Senate seat, Ted Cruz captured the affections of conservatives through his unmatched ability to reach a right-leaning audience. His presence on stage catapulted a novice politician above several more seasoned candidates. Now, four years later, Cruz’s skills on the debate stage have vaulted him into the top tier of the Republican presidential nominating contest. After scoring the single biggest applause line of the evening at last week’s debate on CNBC — blasting the moderators while repeating their assaults on his fellow candidates — new surveys show Cruz’s support ballooning, and his popularity surging....

Donald Trump and Ben Carson are deadlocked in the latest Republican 2016 presidential poll, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz now vaulting into double digit support and third-place overall. Rubio, Bush and Fiorina Perhaps even more encouraging for Cruz, among all GOP voters who watched the last debate he registers 17 percent of the vote, compared to 25 and 24 percent for Trump and Carson respectively. Overall, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio places fourth at nine percent, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (five percent) and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (four percent). Trump vs. Carson A deeper dive into the...

I have a weird proposition for you today. Consider this Halloween-related. If you had to choose between Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz as the next president, which one would you pick and why? If you're a very conservative Republican, this may not be such a daunting prospect. If you're a moderate of either party or someone on the farther left, you're more likely to be appalled. But in the wake of a debate in which Cruz emerged as an increasingly popular candidate in the crowded GOP field, and in which Trump and Carson remain the front-runners, I think...

There is no doubt as to who was the gold medal winner of the CNBC GOP presidential debate last night: Ted Cruz. The silver medal winner was Marco Rubio. They both scored major points by blasting the major losers of the night: the outrageously biased panel of moderators of CNBC. These moderators made Rachel Maddow look like the epitome of fairness. Conservatives have for years asserted that mainstream media has a blatant liberal bias. Nothing did more to prove this assertion than the performance last night of the CNBC moderators. Another major loser was John Kasich. His bitterness at his...

Donald Trump's shock slide from Republican presidential front-runner to second banana behind Dr. Ben Carson can mean only one thing — the billionaire developer's shot at the GOP nomination is cooked, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay tells Newsmax TV. "Trump is on his way out. People have had enough of him, he has no substance, and he's on his way out. That's what I'm seeing," DeLay, a Texas Republican who now hosts a Washington Times radio show, said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show." But could Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon who has never been elected to public...

BOULDER, Colo.– Lindsey Graham 45% may register as little more than a blip in the presidential polls, but he doesn’t sound like a man — or candidate — dejected. On Tuesday night before the third Republican presidential debate, the South Carolina senator participated in an interview with Dana Bash as part of CNN’s “Politics on Tap” series, where he elicited a bundle of laughs from an audience of college Republicans and journalists at a local bar. As he left the event, he spoke with The Daily Caller about the state of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, the Middle East and...

On Saturday, Jeb Bush complained that he had “a lot of really cool things” to do other than run for president. He didn’t want to “sit around, being miserable, listening to people demonize me and me feeling compelled to demonize them.” Gone, it seems, was the “joy in my heart” he had planned to campaign on. The next day, he traveled to Texas to assure donors that he was doing just fine. CNN reports that the previous day’s crowd had been raucous and receptive, but these old family donors have good reason to be worried. Despite their amassing the largest...

BOULDER, Colo. -- Taking full advantage of a restive and swollen debate press corps, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held a brief roundtable with supporters at the University of Colorado, then indulged a media question about Donald Trump's sagging poll numbers. "I think maybe he should get out of the race," Paul said. The students, organized by the Ron Paul-founded Young Americans for Liberty, had no horse race questions. Rand Paul, accompanied by his wife, Kelley, sat between a dozen or so libertarians, a wall of cameras, and a few more students listening intently. (Not everyone in the dining yard was...

You can use this as an open thread if you like — the debate starts at 6 p.m. ET on CNBC — but the thought of Jindal, Graham, Santorum, and smilin’ George Pataki jawing at each other for another 75 minutes feels less like political entertainment than an especially talky episode of “The Walking Dead.” This has to be the last undercard debate. Right? While we wait, here’s an aperitif for Trump fans: The latest national poll from YouGov has him north of 30 percent, comfortably ahead of Ben Carson....

If you’re looking forward to finding out who "won" the GOP debate just minutes or hours after it ends on Wednesday night, you'd probably be better off waiting a few days instead. It's not that there won't be plenty of immediate data to look at, from focus groups and instant polls to social media and web traffic. But as the past few months have shown, none of those are especially reliable guides. A focus group led by GOP pollster Frank Luntz after the first Republican debate in August suggested that voters had soured on Donald Trump -- a prediction not...

On Tuesday evening, establishment Republican consultant Rick Wilson said the GOP establishment donor class must find a way to “put a bullet” in GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Wilson conceded that “Trump is still a very powerful force right now” because he appeals to part of the of the conservative base that Wilson said was activated by his “nativist” message. Wilson insisted that the donor class “can’t just sit back on the sidelines and say, ‘oh well, don’t worry, this will all work itself out.’” “They’re still going to have to go out and...

"I just cringed," said one member of Jeb Bush's extended circle of advisers when asked his reaction to Bush's recent mini-tantrum on the state of the Republican presidential race. "Every politician, at some point, and sometimes justifiably, is pissed off at the voters. But you can't display your frustration with the public." That's what Bush did, thrusting into public view the deep frustration that has been building as his once-mighty campaign slipped behind not only Donald Trump but other GOP rivals as well. "If this election is about how we're going to fight to get nothing done, then I don't...

Donald Trump will lose his zest for campaigning as it gets harder and drop out before Iowa, and Republicans eventually will nominate a presidential candidate who has previously held elective office, a senior strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign said Monday. Speaking at the Clinton School of Public Service, Stuart Stevens said that running for president is “the least enjoyable experience that adults voluntarily enter into.” In August, he wrote in The Daily Beast that Trump wouldn’t even run in order to avoid being tagged a loser, and he still believes that will happen once running for president stops...

Cruz is now third in Iowa and South Carolina and he has resources for the long haul. Carly Fiorina couldn't capitalize on her scrappy second debate performance while Sen. Ted Cruz looks to be assembling an organization for the long haul. That's why they are trading places in the latest rankings of The Chase – U.S. News' snapshot of the 2016 presidential contenders and their shot at their party's nominations. The Texas senator has nudged Fiorina out of the top tier of the GOP primary. He now sits in the No. 4 slot, behind Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Sen....

Republican voters view Donald Trump as their strongest general election candidate, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that highlights the sharp contrast between the party's voters and its top professionals regarding the billionaire businessman's ultimate political strength. Seven in 10 Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters say Trump could win in November 2016 if he is nominated, and that's the most who say so of any candidate. By comparison, 6 in 10 say the same for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who, like Trump, has tapped into the powerful wave of antiestablishment anger defining the early phases of the 2016 contest....

Political experts in a weekly ranking of candidates from the Republican Party in a national newspaper have been seeing a gradual rise in popularity of Senator Ted Cruz from Texas. Last week he was in sixth place and this week has been moved to fourth. Many see the Texas senator as showing signs of having a long stay in the race once the primary season starts to heat up. The ascent by Cruz seems to come at the expense of former CEO at Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina, who was at the top of the survey in September following a strong showing...

CONWAY — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham hopes history will repeat itself in the Granite State. Graham, one of 16 presidential candidates seeking to become the Republican Party's nominee next year, is taking a page out of his good friend Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) campaign playbook by trying to connect with as many New Hampshire residents as possible. The three-term U.S. senator plans to hold more than 100 town hall meetings in the state, and as part of 12-day swing through New Hamphire will spend much of Wednesday in Conway. A town hall meeting is scheduled for 6:20 p.m. at...

The rapid rise and equally rapid fall of Carly Fiorina deserves our attention. Before the most recent debate, she was languishing in the polls with only 4 percent of the vote (CBS, Sept. 9-13). After a smashing performance in the second debate, she soared into second place with 15 percent (CNN, Sept. 17-19). Now the most recent polls have her falling back into the pack with only 6 percent support (CBS, Oct. 4-8). What happened? Her initial rise was partially due to her headline-stealing riposte to Donald Trump for his ill-considered comments demeaning her physical appearance. By linking her cause...

Ben Carson and Donald Trump are neck and neck in the battle for Pennsylvania’s 2016 GOP presidential primary voters, a new poll says. Trump edges out Carson by 1 percentage point in the Keystone State, according to the latest Public Policy Polling (PPP) sampling released Tuesday. Trump leads the GOP presidential race in the state with 24 percent support. Carson closely trails the outspoken billionaire at 23 percent. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina follow them at 9 percent apiece. Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) and Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) are next with 7 percent each....