Posted on 07/07/2015 3:28:43 PM PDT by VinL
Look closer at Donald Trump’s recent surge in the polls, and you’ll see the Manhattan mogul’s base of support is suddenly growing, but he’s taking up oxygen from the sorts of conservative candidates who have in previous years drawn the excitement and attention of conservatives.
A testament to that fact: Texas senator Ted Cruz has gone out of his way to defend Trump in the wake of the firestorm surrounding the celebrity mogul’s recent comments on illegal immigrants, evidence that he is trying to elbow his way into the limelight and win the favor of the sizeable number of voters who are telling pollsters they’re supporting Trump. He may never rise above 15 percent in the polls, but it doesn’t mean he won’t affect the race.
Merely by making himself the center of attention, he has the potential to prevent other, more serious candidates on the right from gaining traction. ”Ted Cruz, among the more serious tier of candidates, had staked out probably the hardest line on immigration,” says Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican consultant. “He touches the same deeply angry, populist, and extremely vocal segment of the GOP that is furious over immigration, illegal and otherwise.
Trump directly draws from that hyper-populist pool, and Cruz realizes it, since he seems to be the last Republican still not knocking Trump’s block off.” Trump jumped from 3 percent at the end of May to 12 percent at the end of June in CNN’s national poll, putting himself in second place. In those same two surveys, Cruz dropped from 8 percent to 3 percent. Marco Rubio dropped from 14 percent to 6 percent, and Scott Walker dropped from 10 percent to 6 percent. In Fox News’s national poll, Trump leapt from 4 percent to 11 percent in a three-week stretch in June. Meanwhile, Cruz dropped from 8 percent to 4 percent; Rubio gained a point, and Walker dropped from 12 percent to 9 percent. ‘Trump directly draws from that hyper-populist pool, and Cruz realizes it, since he seems to be the last Republican still not knocking Trump’s block off.’
History, of course, suggests we should take Trump’s early polling strength with a grain of salt. In April 2011, the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found Trump at the top of that cycle’s GOP field with 26 percent, ahead of Mike Huckabee at 17 percent and Mitt Romney at 15 percent. A week later, Gallup’s first national poll found Trump debuting in a first-place tie with Huckabee at 16 percent, while Romney languished in second at 13 percent. By mid-April, however, Trump had dropped to 8 percent in a Fox News poll, and he held steady there through early May, before announcing that he would not run for president after all.
Still, Trump’s latest surge is a problem for any number of other candidates in the field: It seems pretty clear that the mogul’s current fan base consists of the party’s most conservative voters — those who have in previous years rallied behind candidates such as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum.
Many of the same voters, in fact, who warmly welcomed Ted Cruz into the race this time around. “Donald Trump is a salesman — he understands that a dispirited portion of the Republican primary electorate wants to hear that mountains can be moved and battles long ago lost can be successfully re-litigated, and he cannot resist making that pitch,” says Noah Rothman, an assistant editor at Commentary. “Ted Cruz, on the other hand, knows full well that the claims he has made regarding the introduction of a constitutional amendment that would subject Supreme Court justices to retention elections and advising states to ignore the Court’s ruling with regard to gay marriage are not only bad ideas but they are unfeasible. He, too, is pitching disaffected GOP voters.”
Liz Mair, a GOP consultant who formerly worked with Scott Walker, sees Trump benefiting from his high name ID, the usual bump that occurs after a campaign’s announcement, and his ability to reflect and amplify the base’s anger.
“There is a portion of the GOP electorate who are just mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore, who tend to show support for whoever also sounds the maddest or most inclined to stick it to the powers-that-be at any given time,” says Mair. “Trump is likely benefiting from a shift in support among people in the latter category away from candidates including Cruz, who is probably retaining support from conservatives who like his principles first and foremost, but may be losing out a little among the ‘burn the house down’ types,” she adds. “Those people want a presidential candidate who essentially allows them to vent their frustrations, by proxy; and Trump has a huge megaphone to amplify said venting.”
I have a bad feeling that RINO Trump will suck the air away from the real conservatives and help throw the nomination to Jeb.
( and yes Trump is a RINO. He’s previously said he identifies as a Democrat and his political donations read like a Who’s Who of dem bigwigs )
I hate to say you are an idiot so I won’t but you might be an alien. Donald Trump is the only one who is standing up and telling the truth. Finally Rush and Sean were supporting him today and now tonight Mark Levin. You have been listening to George Will and Charles Krauthammer and Tokyo Rove for too long. :-)
Cute pics and quips about Trump’s hair?
These diversions no longer work. They’re weak, worn out, over used and seen for what they are.
If you guys were being paid for this, you should be fired.
Nice photoshop. You’re really threatened by a truth teller.
He likely dropped in the polls after voters decided he would not run. And he gained his 20% or higher support well before April, as early as February 2011. He'd been speaking and making noises for a couple of months before April, which this article presents as if Trump's rise and fall all took place in April. It didn't.
Who will you vote for?
Not quite. Cruz knows Trump is driving the clown car so when he implodes, and he will, he knows full well there is only one candidate with a credible anti-amnesty stand. Cruz is simply playing the waiting game.
This is Trump's race to lose.
That's an incredibly stupid comment. If you were referring to his comment about ILLEGAL aliens I have said before that I agree. I just don't want him for the Republican nominee because he is a lifelong liberal democRAT.
I agree. Can’t suck the air out when it’s being blown out by squishy liberal “Republicans”.
Please post to any post of mine wherein I have ever said anything about liberal Donald Trump's hair.
You can't, just like you can't refute the fact you are supporting a lifelong liberal democRAT.
Besides Cruz, exactly who IS there to vote for?
I can tell you that no matter what I WILL NOT vote for Jeb, Christie, Rubio, Fiorina or any other left wing nut-job calling themselves “Republican” while lecturing my on what not to say about illegal alien criminals.
Trump is, at least, making them look like the fools they are.
Not this time. This time they are important, as Fox is using them to filter who gets to the debate. Failing to get on stage at the debate will be tough to overcome, you will have been sorted into the marginal category, from which you probably will never recover. Certainly Bobby Jindal isn't going anywhere.
We are several months away from the first state primary, and then it is state by state, not national.
Again true for the first tier candidates, but probably not for all the candidates in low single digits and 7th or 8th place and down. Plus: Cruz is also down around 7th place in Iowa and New Hampshire, although he's in 4th in South Carolina. That's not good enough to win the nomination.
In general to win the nomination the successful candidate will have to win a bunch of states, you are right.
Romney won 42 States. Sa ntorum won 11, Newt 2 and Ron Paul won the territory of the Marianas Islands or something.
Can Ted Cruz win Texas? He's ahead in the polls there, 20% to Perry's 16%. What other states can he win?
At this point he's starting to feel a bit like Lindsey - a favorite son.
Maybe we will have a brokered convention! That would be fun.
Except recall the problem --the disaster -- caused by Perot wasn't that he "sucked the air out of the room" (which, following the political changes and events over the past 20 years, is OK by me with all the RINOs/GOPEs running around attempting to hide their emnity for conservatives.)
No, the problem was that Perot ran as a third-party candidate (the Reform Party as I recall), that took votes away from the GOP candidates in the general election who were weak enough without Perot running. I don't think Trump has any plans to run if he's not the GOP nominee which is the right thing for him to do.
I say let Trump stir things up "real good" in these early stages ... right up to the primaries if he can last. His presence hurts the duplicitous GOP candidates the most ... and it's so very entertaining watching our "professional candidates" try to reconcile their political calculations with the truth which is proving to be very difficult for them indeed!
There’s this huge—I mean huge—gap to the right of the Republican Party. We have nowhere to go. Don’t like Common Core, immigration amnesty, special favors to big business, free trade, etc? Where can we go? Jebbie Bush or the mini-Bush Rubio? LOL!
Could be...But who's better for America; Bush, Christie???
However I wouldn’t vote for him,.
You'd vote for the deceivers instead???
Why would you assume because I don't support one liberal Republican I would support another?
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