Posted on 10/27/2015 1:04:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We have arrived at Donald Trump’s first real crisis on the campaign trail. In one word, it is “Iowa.”
In the latest Monmouth poll, Trump is now 14 points behind Ben Carson. One poll, in and of itself, is not a trend. But there are now five polls showing the same trend. Trump is now behind Carson.
Trump supporters cannot credibly think that suddenly the pollsters are all wrong. They have been relying on the very same pollsters for months to show Trump winning. If they are going to claim that suddenly the pollsters realize Trump is too credible and the pollsters must now sabotage him, the Trump supporters must then ask why the media continues to let Trump come on. He had a rather softball time of it with NBC yesterday. He continues to be allowed to call into television programs where other candidates are required to be on set.
No, live by the polls, die by the polls. Donald Trump has lost his lead in Iowa. It is, however, more serious than that.
First, historically, once a major candidate in Iowa has lost the lead, he never regains the lead. Donald Trump is, however, a once in a lifetime candidate. He should be able to overcome it. But Trump’s problem is in the underlying poll data.
Trump is less and less anyone’s second choice.
If you examine Carson’s supporters, you find a group of people, many of whom are evangelical, who were long ago put off by Trump’s braggadocios attitude. They wanted their own outsider, but they wanted the quiet Christian alternative. They went with Carson and those initial Carson supporters will not go to Trump.
Now in Iowa, Carson has taken votes from both Trump and Fiorina and these new Carson voters are signaling they will not go back to Trump.
In the Monmouth poll, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 93% are increasingly people’s second choice. Trump, to be sure, garners more overall with combined first choice and second choice votes at 30% compared to Rubio and Cruz tied for 24%. But as Trump has trended downward, his second choice gains are noticeably smaller.
Rubio, for example, went from 4% to 10% on the first choice question and from 8% to 14% on the second choice question. Trump, on the other hand, fell from 23% to 18% on the first choice and only grew 2%, to 12% on the second choice question.
Monmouth is not the only poll to show this. The Des Moines Register poll also shows a Trump decline as Rubio and Cruz make advances. The Quinnipiac poll is even worse for Trump.
Quinnipiac asked this question: “Are there any of these candidates you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president?”
30% of voters overall said they would never vote for Trump, which was higher than Jeb Bush’s. But most damning for Trump is that 31% of evangelicals would never vote for him and 24% of very conservative voters would never vote for Trump. The former is higher than with Bush and the latter is only three points behind Bush.
Trump has lost Iowa. He has lost evangelicals, who are a core component of the Iowa Caucuses. According to press reports, Trump has yet to buy a voter file to even get people to caucuses in about 100 days. No candidate at this point who has ever lost a lead in Iowa has gotten it back. More and more of the core of conservative and evangelical voters in Iowa are turning from Trump.
So very shortly we should start hearing from Donald Trump how Iowa does not matter, which just means New Hampshire and South Carolina will matter more. In both, Trump is doing very well, with only one noticeable trend. The more polls focus on likely voters instead of registered voters, Trump’s margin goes down.
Iowa is meaningless.
And the poss is BS as well.
More wishful thinking from another RINO ... He should focus more energy on his drive time show here in ATL. With shows like his, I REALLY miss the Kimmer in afternoon.
More wishful thinking from another RINO ... He should focus more energy on his drive time show here in ATL. With shows like his, I REALLY miss the Kimmer in afternoon.
So Mr Drama Queen, who won Iowa in 2008 and 2012?
Let me refresh your memory.
2008 Huckabee
2012 Santroum.
We’ll see how the vote turns out in Iowa. From what I understand of the process it’s much more than just a simple vote....lots of arm twisting and structure that needs to be in place. I’m betting Trump has it locked up.
Erick Erikson eh? Everybody’s nobody.
He is so anti-Trump, he can’t stand to think that Trump is in the lead everywhere including Iowa.
And Trump is leading in Iowa.
Winners in Iowa the last two election primaries:
Huckabee
Santorum
Nuff said....
Rick Santorum ......... Iowan’s prefer the kooks
Beat me to it...*L*
Crawl back into your hole, ee, whether I'm for Trump or not, I'll look to you for advice just as soon as I get it from Karl Rove, in other words, never!
How often has Iowa picked a winner?
2012 - Rick Santorum (25%), Mitt Romney (25%)
2008 – Mike Huckabee (34%), Mitt Romney (25%), Fred Thompson (13%), John McCain (13%)
2000 – George W. Bush (41%), Steve Forbes (31%), Alan Keyes (14%)
1996 – Bob Dole (26%), Pat Buchanan (23%), Lamar Alexander (18%)
1988 – Bob Dole (37%), Pat Robertson (25%), George H. W. Bush (19%)
1980 – George H. W. Bush (32%), Ronald Reagan (30%), Howard Baker (15%)
Not sure I’d worry about Iowa. I hope not, since Carson does NOT impress me at all!
The stupidity of the conservative voter base if this is accurate, would be evident if they would vote for Carson.
The tortured attempts by people here to even construct a rationale for supporting him beyond some sentimental nonsense involving his religious life and his “soft-spokeness” shows me that this is nothing short of a narrative push. It would be more believable if Cruz was in this spot. Oddly enough he isn’t close, so that tells me something has to be off here.
Or this is just Iowa trying to be cute because that’s what they are “supposed to do”. Give a win to the dumbest choice just to get candidates to spend time and money on them...just so that the same goobers don’t show up in November, and hand the state over to the nearest Democrat.
Corn Subsidies Uber Alles.
I thought RedState had the good sense to fire this establishment hack.
Good luck with your RINO/GOPee attempts at shutting out Trump, Erick the Red.
No sale. Your *facts* don’t add up. Trump has some of the most solid support, of ANY of the candidates....so, there’s that.
The Trunp supporters are full of excuses.
I guess the hosting of SNL will help his polls numbers.... Sarcasm.
Wait...isn’t this the guy who was sputtering about how illegal immigration is no big deal just a few months ago?
How Don Trump was just an evil xenophobic racist blah blah?
The so-called “conservative”, Erick Erickson.
I would hardly use the term “crisis”. Carson could drop just a quick as he rose.
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