National poll: Cruz and Rubio surged after Iowa

Politico ^ | February 9, 2015 | Nolan D. McCaskill

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are riding a wave of momentum after strong finishes in Iowa.

Donald Trump maintains a double-digit lead over his Republican rivals, but Rubio has experienced the largest surge, according to an NBC News/SurveyMonkey tracking poll released Tuesday.

The billionaire businessman has 35 percent support nationally among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters. Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses last week, has 20 percent support, followed by Rubio in third with 17 percent support. Ben Carson is at 7 percent, and the rest of the field is at 3 percent or less.

While Trump still leads by 15 percentage points, his support has dropped in the past week as Rubio has risen 5 points. The remainder of the field has been relatively stagnant.

But Republicans and Republican-leaning voters are increasingly seeing Cruz and Rubio as threats to take the nomination away from Trump, who has held commanding leads over his rivals nationally for months. A 42 percent plurality say Trump will win the nomination - a massive 20 percent fall since last week that comes amid double-digit gains for Cruz and Rubio. About three in 10 say they believe will Cruz will win the nomination, and 18 percent say they see Rubio coming out on top. Both are 10 percentage-point upticks since last week.

[County Agent Hank Kimball]

"...unless they are voting based on Cruz’s dirty politician tricks of intimidation and lying."

Need this?

Hank

[CottonBall]

You can’t even admit your candidate is a dirty politician - my pointing it out is the problem, LOL! says it all.

[County Agent Hank Kimball]

Here’s a clue. EVERY politician is dirty.

Every one. Cruz. Trump. George Washington. Ronald Reagan.

None of ‘em pure. And Trump least of all.

None of those other guys ever went to court to throw an old lady out of her house.

So far as I know any way.

Hank

[Dave W]

Well, he connected in Iowa. That is what they said about Ronald Reagan, too. That he was too conservative and his appeal wasn’t broad enough. We know what happened.

[Dave W]

The media, which I am sure you are aware. The media amplifies someone who exceeds expectations and destroys those that underperform. That is the value and cost of both Iowa and NH.

It's not the delegates. It is the momentum that the media lends, which is why Rubio zoomed up in NH (at least until Sat night) after his placement in Iowa.

[CottonBall]

Yeah, but that’s like getting into the stock market based on emotion and hype, without researching a single company.

I’m hoping people aren’t that stupid. I know, I’m wrong but not everyone can be so stupid...

[CottonBall]

LOL, your excuse is that everybody does it?

Nope, only Cruz lied and cheated during the first caucus. Pretty despicable.

And that you are fine with it, well, says a lit about your candidate.