Ben Carson is starting to surge in the polls, drawing closer to Donald Trump, who seems to be the real “King of All Media” in terms of the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination race and upward poll movement. Look for more fireworks between the two given polls such as this new one:
Ben Carson has been trailing Donald Trump in the polls for about a month now, steadily increasing his share of support from Republican voters even as Trump keeps tromping around in first place, shouting. Carson, tortoise; Trump, hair.
A new poll from CBS News and the New York Times reveals just how much Carson is gaining on Trump. Trump gets 27 percent — and Carson gets 23. (The Post-ABC poll that was conducted a few days prior to the CBS-Times poll had Trump at 33 and Carson at 20.)
To show movement in the field over time, CBS coupled its report on the new poll with results from a poll conducted at the end of July. It’s only been a bit over a month, but in this ridiculous year, a month’s passage yields an entirely different field. Back then, Trump had as much support as the next two candidates, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, combined. Now, Trump’s got as much as Bush plus Walker times three.
Ben Carson has been trailing Donald Trump in the polls for about a month now, steadily increasing his share of support from Republican voters even as Trump keeps tromping around in first place, shouting. Carson, tortoise; Trump, hair.
…Big jump for Carson. Consistent polling for Trump, whose surge in the polls is now two-and-a-half months old.
In fact, Carson’s recent improvement looks an awful lot like Trump’s. Comparing the Real Clear Politics polling averages for the two from the point at which each began to surge, Carson’s rise tracks how Trump did when he first started to run wild — albeit slightly less huge.
Which means Carson will aim a bit more at Trump and Trump will start going after Carson, bigtime. Carson is apparently a kind of “Trump Lite” for many voters who are tired of the GOP establishment, but are turned off by Trump’s bombast and what can be politely termed as his lack of a self-esteem problem. Plus, he doesn’t fit the mode in terms of passing many litmus tests that are required in the GOP for those who don’t have unusual hair dos (or hair don’ts).
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.