Cruz's Poll Decline Underway? If So Last Barrier To Trump Removed

recovering-liberal.blogspot ^ | Friday, December 25, 2015 | M.Joseph Sheppard

[GonzoII]

Cruz's Poll Decline Underway? If So Last Barrier To Trump Removed

The graph tells the tale. One by one the anti-Trump candidates rise, helped in no small part by a desperate media and establishment, and one by one they fall.

The Fiorina, Carson, Walker, Kasich, Bush, Rubio "surges" are noticeable, but like shooting stars are very brief. The exception being Ben Carson who, alone after Trump took the lead on July 20th, actually put his nose in front for three days. But in some sort of cosmic schadenfreude Carson's decline has been spectacular.

After Trump rose Bush declined. In Bush's stead Walker rose. After Walker declined Carson rose spectacularly whilst Fiorina, with the media, especially Fox's Megyn Kelly giving her every advantage, rose seemingly strikingly but from 1% which made her rise look bigger than it was. 

Fiorina's decline saw Rubio's rise from a low of 5% to touching 15% and, as with all the other candidates, it has been steadily downhill from there to 11.5% These percentages are from the Real Clear Politics aggregate "Poll of Polls" so they smooth out the distortions possibly inherent in individual polls and seem the best method we currently have to gauge popular support.

None of the other candidates have risen above the seemingly impenetrable 5% barrier except Senator Cruz. Nothing could be clearer than the fact that Carson's decline, and to possibly a lesser extent Rubio's, has seen Cruz gain a polling rise almost equal to Carson's decline. This also clearly obvious in Iowa where Carson's Evangelical support has switched to Cruz.

Carson's polling height was 24.8 on November 4th on which day Cruz was on 8.8%.Today Carson is on 10% and Cruz 18.1%. But it is Cruz's current trend which is the key to whether or not Trump achieves away with the nomination by "running the board" as his team advised they look to.

A few day polling is by no means a certain indicator of future trends, but with Trump's rivals it can be safely said that once a downturn trend commences it continues on apace. The Real Clear Politics graph above shows a slight leveling off for Cruz (the black line) which reflect the 6 point drop in Cruz's polling in the last two polls;

In the Reuters Ipsos tracking poll polling Cruz's decline is more marked going from 16.2% on December 19th to 12.8% on December 24th

 In the Huffington Post Poll aggregator the two latest polls show a 5 point drop for Cruz;

And in the Iowa caucus polling Cruz drops a huge 9 points.

These moves may be temporary or may mark a plateau for Cruz who, on current polling stands a good chance in the Iowa caucus voting. But if these polls do, as with all the preceding candidates, mark a steady decline in Cruz's support then the road is open for Trump to simply destroy the opposition from Iowa right through to Florida and to the nomination.

[GonzoII]

The Author made a mistake calling the Reuters 5-day tracking poll where Ted dropped about 4 points, the "Reuters/Ipsos" poll. In the new Reuters/Ipsos Poll Cruz dropped 1% confirming the negative trend of the other polls indicated in the article. Looks like Ted may have peaked though clearly giving Trump a run for his money in Iowa.

[pallis]

I must have missed that whole Bush rising in the polls thing.

[pepsionice]

If you go to the scenario that Cruz tops Trump by one or two points in Iowa....it opens up the discussion of what happens over the next four weeks after that.

To be honest, I think all the disappointed and anti-Trump players in the Republican Party....will be equally disappointed and anti-Cruz...so it’s hard to predict how this would play out.

[GonzoII]

"anti-Trump players in the Republican Party....will be equally disappointed and anti-Cruz"

As it is right now I don't think they see much hope.

[Darth Reardon]

Wow, this is astoundingly bad. Not the results, the reporting.

Look at the RCP polls, and notice that only the top two polls in the table are included, leaving out the other six polls included in that time frame, from which we could show by picking two that Cruz rose, fell, or stayed the same.

Of course, comparing two polls and trying to draw a trend is just dumb. Interestingly, if we compare the results of each individual poll to the previous data (for example CNN/ORC 11/27 - 12/1 vs CNN/ORC 12/17 - 12/21), all of them show Cruz going up.

The raw data:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ia/iowa_republican_presidential_caucus-3194.html#polls

[Vision Thing]

Just by eyeballing it, the top graph shows no break in Cruz’s uptrend from November to now.

[libbylu]

LMAO.

[4rcane]

Bush was ahead in July then started dropping

[Praxeologue]

This article is the result of a biased reporter misunderstanding biased polls. The result is a comically reversed reality distortion field.

[Soul of the South]

The only poll that matters is the vote count. Everything until then is media hype.

[GonzoII]

Ping.

[GonzoII]

Latest Polls

Pollster	Dates	Pop.	Trump	Cruz	Rubio	Carson	Bush	Christie	Fiorina	Rand Paul	Huckabee	Kasich	Santorum	Graham	Pataki	Gilmore	Jindal	Perry	Walker	Undecided
Ipsos/Reuters	12/19 - 12/23	626 A	39	13	9	10	7	3	2	2	3	2	3	-	0	0	-	-	-	6
CNN	12/17 - 12/21	438 RV	39	18	10	10	3	5	1	4	2	2	0	1	0	0	-	-	-	2
Emerson College Polling Society	12/17 - 12/20	415 LV	36	21	13	7	6	6	5	1	1	3	-	0	-	-	-	-	-	1
Quinnipiac	12/16 - 12/20	508 RV	28	24	12	10	4	6	2	2	1	1	1	0	0	0	-	-	-	8
FOX	12/16 - 12/17	402 LV	39	18	11	9	3	3	3	3	1	2	1	0	0	0	-	-	-	6
Morning Consult	12/16 - 12/17	861 RV	36	11	9	12	7	2	2	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	11
PPP (D)	12/16 - 12/17	532 LV	34	18	13	6	7	5	4	2	4	2	1	1	0	0	-	-	-	2
Ipsos/Reuters	12/12 - 12/16	730 A	36	14	10	11	7	3	3	3	5	2	0	1	0	0	-	-	-	6
Morning Consult	12/11 - 12/15	1,530 RV	40	9	7	10	7	3	3	3	3	2	1	1	1	-	-	-	-	11
ABC/Post	12/10 - 12/13	362 RV	38	15	12	12	5	4	1	2	1	2	0	1	0	-	-	-	-	6
Monmouth University	12/10 - 12/13	385 RV	41	14	10	9	3	2	2	2	2	3	0	1	1	0	-	-	-	8
NBC/WSJ	12/6 - 12/9	400 LV	27	22	15	11	7	3	5	2	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3
Ipsos/Reuters	12/5 - 12/9	494 A	37	11	12	13	5	4	2	1	2	2	1	2	1	0	-	-	-	6

[LS]

Any poll, including the "Cruz surges" polls, depend on the baseline, you're right. But what everyone has done is to try and pick up the trend. I have for some time thought this season the correct trend indicator---for better or worse---was PPP. (Ever polling season, it appears one polling company seems more tuned in---in the late 90s it was Zogby, then for one cycle before Scott Rasmussen left, it was Rasmussen. I think in 2006 it was Mason-Dixon as I recall).

When I saw the PPP IA poll, I thought it (more than Reuters, signaled the high point for Cruz). We'll see.

[LS]

If you recall, when all the DNR IA poll hoopla started, I said "wait for PPP IA." When that came out a few days later I said I thought Cruz had peaked in IA.

Still too soon, but I think Reuters is confirming nationally what PPP reflected in IA.

[redfreedom]

It happened, it’s just that it was a stealth operation. He used one of Captain Kirk’s cloaking devices. His supporters were also cloaked.

[cripplecreek]

Everything until then is media hype.

Yup its all about perception with the neo-Alinskyites.

[jaydee770]

Let’s forget which line represents which candidate.

I’m looking at this graph and the author has focused on the black line. The author claims that because the black line “...shows a slight leveling off...”, this indicates something significant. All I see is a line doing something it has previously done numerous times.

Where was this magnificent prognosticating author for all the *previous* flat portions of this same black line in this very same graph? Heck, I even see some very clear drops that could fairly be described as *plummets* for this same black line...

Folks always wonder why brain-dead, low-info voters seem to mindlessly vote like the TV tells them to vote. Well, take a look at this report. It’s what I would call a “clue”!

[PGalt]

Leadership on offense v offensive leadership. I’m ready of Hillaryous.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Cruz will get a boost each time he appears next to Trump in a debate, which will be every debate from here on in.

From a strategic perspective, Trump s threats to boycott debates make sense.

When voter first and second choices are combined, Cruz has a slim lead. As candidates drop out, Cruz gains. Trump s support nationally has been flat for five months, oscillating between 30-40 percent, and he has the highest negatives of all the candidates.

[Dr. Sivana]

He used one of Captain Kirk’s cloaking devices.

The cloaking device was owned by the Romulans.