A new CNN poll of the registered Republican and Republican-leaning voters finds Carly Fiorina taking second place in the GOP presidential primary, behind Donald Trump and just one point ahead of Ben Carson. The poll, taken over the course of the three days following CNN’s September 16 debate, found Trump with 24 percent support, down 8 points from the same poll earlier this month and back to where he was in the CNN poll a month ago.
Fiorina, coming off what was considered a strong debate performance, is at 15 percent support, a 12-point swing from her 3 percent support in the previous CNN poll. Carson has dipped down to 14 percent from 19 percent support in that same time period.
The other apparenent beneficiary of the debate was Marco Rubio, who clocked in at fourth place with 11 percent support. That’s up 8 points from 3 percent support earlier this September.
Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Rick Santorum are all about even from where they were 2 weeks ago, with Bush coming in at fifth place with 9 percent support. The biggest drop came for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who had 5 percent support earlier this month and even topped out at 10 percent back in July. But this time, Walker did not even register more than a percentage point.
According to Real Clear Politics’s average of national polls, Trump maintains a 9-point lead. This is the first national poll to show Fiorina in second place, and the first to show her with double-digit support.
CNN also asked about which Republican voters watched the two CNN debates, the “undercard” and the top-tier debates. A plurality, 32 percent, said they did not watch or listen to either debate but did pay attention to news reports about them, while 23 percent said they watched both debates and 23 percent said they watched the main debate.
When asked who won the main debate, 52 percent of those who said they watched said Fiorina won, with 14 percent giving the victory to Rubio and just 11 percent giving it to Trump. The same people were asked who performed the worst, and 33 percent said Trump while 22 percent named Paul.
Is this the beginning of the end of Trump? CNN’s is just one poll, and it’s worth noting that just after the August 6 Fox News debate, Trump saw a minor dip in his support. But soon after, his support began growing again. It remains to be seen if his drop, and Fiorina’s rise, last longer than in the few days following the debate.
