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Republican Donald Trump isn’t going away anytime soon, I now believe. That assessment doesn’t mean I think Trump is the favorite for the Iowa caucuses or the GOP nomination, but it does reflect a fundamental shift in my thinking. I can no longer say that with any certainty, though it remains the single most likely outcome. Trump’s favorable rating jumped from 27 percent in the May Selzer & Company’s Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics to 61 percent in the August 23-25 Selzer survey. At the same time, his unfavorable rating dropped from 63 percent to...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said that while it was too bad Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis was put in jail over her refusal to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, people have to abide by the Supreme Court's ruling on the matter. "Well, you know, she was released and that was good, and it was too bad that she had to be put in jail, and I'm a very, very strong believer in Christianity and religion, but I will say that this was not the right job for her," Mr. Trump said on Tuesday evening's "The O'Reilly Factor" on...

New polls from NBC News and Marist out from New Hampshire and Iowa show that, once again, billionaire Donald Trump is winning a fight with yet another career politician: This time, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush’s position in the all-important first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa has deteriorated significantly as he’s at a meager 6 percent—in a poll with a margin of error of 5.5 percent—meaning he’s slipping further and further into the lower tiers of candidates there. -snip- New Hampshire, which unlike Iowa is a pretty much must-win-state for Bush to be able to get the nomination or at...

Current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump maintains a strong lead in New Hampshire, while establishment pick Jeb Bush has steadily lost support in the early-voting Granite State, says the new NBC News/Marist poll. Trump is 16 percentage points ahead of his closest competitor, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and has 28 percent of likely Republican voters backing him. Dr. Ben Carson came in third place with 11 percent of the vote, while Bush dropped to fourth place at eight percent. Bush has lost almost half his supporters in New Hampshire since July, when he was in second place behind Trump with 14...

In the most recent Iowa GOP Poll, Jeb Bush polled at 6%. But the poll's margin of error is plus or minus 5.5%. That means Bush may be as high as 11.5%, or as low as .5%, which could be rounded off to zero. Isn't that incredible for the "inevitable" $120 million dollar man, who now may be at zero percent in Iowa, and not doing much better (only 8%) in New Hampshire? Do you think it would help if Bush ran some Spanish language ads calling himself a Conservative? The secondary story in all this is that Scott Walker...

Meanwhile, in the Republican presidential race, Donald Trump now holds a seven-point lead in Iowa and a 16-point one in New Hampshire. In the Hawkeye State, Trump gets the support from 29 percent of potential GOP caucus-goers, while Ben Carson receives 22 percent. There's a steep drop off after that: Jeb Bush gets 6 percent; Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul and Scott Walker get 5 percent; and Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal are at 4 percent. In July, Walker was ahead of the Iowa Republican field at 19 percent, Trump was second at 17 percent and Bush was third...

I talked with Republican wise men last week — sober establishment strategists who have seen many presidential campaigns come and go — to ask them how long the improbable popularity of Donald Trump can last. Reassure me, I said: He can't actually win, right? Their answers surprised me.

With his poll numbers plummeting in crucial early states, Walker has floundered as Trump has surged...

Gannett paper, link only: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/09/05/iowa-poll-lanes-analysis/71712670/

The University of Iowa's governing board on Thursday named a corporate management expert with little higher education experience as the school's next president, an unusual choice meant to shake up the culture of the state's flagship academic institution. The selection of J. Bruce Harreld, a former senior vice president at IBM and lecturer at Harvard Business School, immediately outraged professors who had overwhelmingly rated him as unqualified. Nationally, the pick could spark debate over whether business experience alone is enough to lead a major public research university... Harreld said he was honored, calling his selection "a watershed moment for a...

Former governor Jeb Bush said that Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk jailed for contempt of court after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, doesn’t have the authority to defy the courts. “She is sworn to uphold the law, and it seems to me that there ought to be common ground, there ought to be big enough space for her to act on her conscience and — now that the law is the law of the land — for a gay couple to be married in whatever jurisdiction that is,” Bush told reporters in New Hampshire. Davis’s case...

Donald Trump is maintaining a commanding 2-1 lead in the latest poll of GOP caucus goers in Iowa, and his only rival in double digits is another political novice, Dr. Ben Carson. Former frontrunner FL Gov. Jeb Bush has tumbled into eighth place despite his $100-million bankroll. In a Gravis Marketing poll of 507 Iowa Republicans conducted last Friday and Saturday, Trump has 31.7 percent to Carson’s 15.8 and Bush’s 4.1 percent. A Monmouth University poll released yesterday had showed Trump and Carson running neck and neck with 23 percent – much to the excitement of the GOP establishment, including...

An interesting thing is happening in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the early polls matter the most. Carly Fiorina is in third place, and rising. In Iowa, she leads every current and former Republican officeholder and trails only the other insurgent candidates, Donald Trump and Ben Carson. In New Hampshire, she trails Trump and a surprising John Kasich. That’s bad news for Republican officeholders, good news for the political insurgents, and great news for Fiorina. In all likelihood, she will be the last outsider standing. Political campaigns are long and brutal, with external events often dictating the topics and media...

Have conservatives caused the liberal media to totally crack up and reveal their utter contempt for those who disagree with them? In recent days we've seen Mike Barnicle declare that he wants to live "as far away as possible" from anti-establishment Republican voters, and Sirius host John Fugelsang contemptously call conservatives "rubes" that Fox News labors to keep in its "paddock." The cavalcade of liberal contempt for conservatives continued on Chris Hayes' MSNBC show tonight, as Esquire's Charlie Pierce described the Republican Iowa caucuses as being controlled "by a freakish minority of a freakish Republican party." View the video here.

Donald Trump still holds the top spot with 25 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. Carson takes second with 18 percent and Bush follows at 10 percent. Carson’s rise from 6.3 percent in the April Loras poll comes just one day after a Monmouth University poll found him tied with Trump at the top of the Hawkeye State polls. The retired neurosurgeon has been steadily gaining ground over the past few weeks and has come in second to Trump in two recent national polls.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa -- A solider kneeling at a cross at a park in Knoxville has been the topic of debate for weeks now. Earlier this month, a resident asked the city to remove the cross, but on Sunday, the majority of the community rallied together to convince the city to keep it.Close to 2,000 people protested around the display in Young’s Park. They made their stance known before the city makes its decision on whether to remove the cross.Several veterans, state politicians and residents spoke Sunday saying the cross should stay.“That’s their constitutional right to be offended, but it's also...

Sen. Ted Cruz is talking about the establishment these days: the one he plans to tear apart in Washington, D.C., and, in the meantime, the one he’s building up among his grassroots supporters in early-voting states.The Texas Republican says the latter is the strongest of any presidential candidate.Before unveiling his Manchester headquarters Monday, Cruz stopped in Concord and touted his dedicated teams in New Hampshire and in Iowa, South Carolina and “across the Super Tuesday states” as the heart of his campaign.“Here in New Hampshire, our leadership team is – on any objective measure – much stronger than any other...

When it comes to conservatives, liberal media types are lately really letting their snobbery show. Last week, as we reported here, John Fugelsang referred to conservatives as "rubes" who Fox News worked to keep in its "paddock." Today, it was Mike Barnicle's turn to display his disdain. Guest-hosting on With All Due Respect, Barnicle declared "I would want to live as far away as possible" from the 53% of Iowa Republican voters who favor anti-establishment candidates Trump, Carson, Fiorina and Cruz. View the video here.

A new poll released Monday shows Ben Carson tied with Donald Trump for the lead in Iowa with 23 percent support, marking the first time since mid-July ... The Monmouth University poll shows the surgeon’s support has unexpectedly increased by 15 points...Iowa frontrunner Scott Walker has dropped 15 points to fifth place now. Businesswoman Carly Fiorina holds third place in the new poll with 10 percent ... Ted Cruz is in fourth place in the poll with 9 percent support, while Jeb Bush has sunk to 6th place with 5 percent of the vote. ...

Get ready for a new context shift in the Republican presidential sweepstakes. There could be no greater contrast in the GOP primary race than the brash bluster of Donald Trump and the calm, philosophical demeanor of Ben Carson. Both approaches seem to be working, though, as Carson has tied Trump in the latest Monmouth University poll in Iowa: The Monmouth University Poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers finds Ben Carson and Donald Trump tied for the top spot. This marks the first time since July 26 that a poll in any of the first four nominating states has not shown...