Christmas came early for poll thumper Donald Trump in the latest CNN/ORC poll published on Wednesday.
Trump polled at 39 percent, which represents a 3-point jump for the real estate magnate since the last poll taken at the end of November.
He’s followed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at 18 percent, which is only a 2-point jump for the freshman senator. This is the highest both men have polled thus far in the CNN/ORC poll.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tied for third in support overall at 10 percent. This is a slight decline for both men.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie followed at 5 percent.
Trump also led among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who watched the debate with 33 percent saying he did the best job in the Republican presidential debate on Dec. 15. Cruz again took second place at 28 percent. (Margin of error was plus or minus 6.5 percent.)
The poll was conducted among 438 registered voters who describe themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents from Dec. 17-21 via telephone interviews. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.5 percent.
It doesn’t get any more stupid than this.
Trump: First I go after Rapists, then after Terrorists and as expected, I am climbing. Every few weeks I will have another group, eg The Blacks, Bleeding Humans, Jews etc. culminating with perceived Liberals in jail.
Curious why doesn’t anyone reporting this poll report on the number for Bush? Doesn’t that seem kind of critical to a once front runner candidate who is now sinking out of the race?
Edit: just looked it up, 3%, below Rand Paul at 4%.
Bush is polling below the MOE. It is the lulz. I giggle every time I think of all that wasted billionaire money in his super PAC.
Personally, national polling at this point is entirely meaningless. I am only interested in what is happening in the actual states now. And my interest there is moving away from the polling numbers to the reporting on the actual ground games.
They way I see it playing out is Cruz wins Iowa, Trump comes in 2nd (possibly 3rd), but nowhere near as close as expected.
Trump wins in NH, but not by nearly as large as a margin as expected…both because of a weak ground game, a reliance on supporters who don’t vote, and because of the loss in Iowa. 2nd place is a bit of a mess with Rubio,Christie and Cruz all being right around the same level. If Cruz pulls a head of that bunch…he is in the drivers seat heading to SC. If Christie pulls a head of Rubio (even if he loses to Cruz), Rubio’s campaign goes into panic mode.
A wounded Trump goes into SC with an invigorated Cruz well positioned to upset him again. If he does, the narrative starts to become set…“Cruz is surging”. If Trump holds on, the narrative becomes “Tough horse race, neck and neck”. The Establishment lane will need to consolidate behind one candidate in either SC or NV. If they have multiple people in the race heading into Super Tuesday, they are out of the running and probably out of reach for a brokered convention.