A new poll of the Republican presidential primary from the New York Times and CBS News shows consensus frontrunner Donald Trump making “modest” gains, from 24 percent at the beginning of August to 27 percent. But his closest rival for the nominatjon, Ben Carson, has seen a bigger jump in that time, from 6 percent in early August to 23 percent in the new poll.
That significant boost for Carson has been seen in other national polls and early state polls, where he’s rocketed to the second-place position. On Twitter, the boss suggests Carson’s better favorability means a change in the consensus may be in order:
Carson at 23% surely has much better fav/unfav than Trump at 27%. Shouldn’t Carson be considered GOP frontrunner? http://t.co/nMygDPQmP4
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 15, 2015
One recent poll that asked about favorability was a Quinnipiac national poll. It found Carson had a high favorability rating of 62 percent, second only to Marco Rubio at 72 percent. Carson’s net favorability among Republicans is 56 points. Trump isn’t much behind Carson on the percentage of Republicans who view him favorably, 59 percent, but his net favorability is at 29 points, nearly 30 points lower than the same rating for Carson. That’s because a big chunk of Republicans—30 percent—say they have an unfavorable view of Trump, and he’s beaten on that number only by Chris Christie and Rand Paul.
So if Donald Trump undoubtedly won the summer of 2015, it looks possible that Carson—with momentum in the polls, a presence in person and on air in Iowa, and those sky-high favorability numbers—is on his way to winning the fall. Which is what the boss predicted a couple weeks ago:
