Over the last few days, several polls have been released that are pretty consistent with one another, at least with regard to the race for the Republican presidential nomination. CNN, Fox News, Quinnipiac, and Bloomberg have polled Americans on this topic since the September 16th CNN debate and have released their findings.
Before last week’s debate, businessdood and former–though some might say present–reality television star Donald Trump averaged around 30 percent in the polls to lead the pack among the GOP contenders. After the debate, he’s down to 24 percent, a loss of six points.
Before the debate, neurosurgeon Ben Carson stood around 20 percent. A week later, Carson’s now fallen by four to around 16 percent.
Businesschick Carly Fiorina before the debate–3 percent. She has since taken significant jump to 12 percent.
Former Gov. Jeb! Bush was at 8 percent, and now he’s at 10 percent.
Sen. Marco Rubio then–5 percent. Rubio now–9 percent.
Sen. Ted Cruz hasn’t budged much from the 6-7 percent range for about the last month.
Gov. Chris Christie received a minor bump upward, former Gov. Mike Huckabee has taken a slight fall downward, and Gov. John Kasich has remained about the same. All three of them are now around 3 percent.
Sen. Rand Paul’s support wanes between 2 and 3 percent, down about a point from before. Former Gov. George Pataki, former Sen. Rick Santorum, Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Sen. Lindsey Graham remain insignificant in the standings with less than a one percent chance of winning the primaries if they took place today, according to the poll averages.
These results are somewhat–I’ll repeat, somewhat–reflective of the amount of time the candidates spoke during the debate as far as places in the standings are concerned, except in the case of Jeb! who–with just over seventeen minutes of airtime–spoke for the second-longest amount of time last Wednesday compared to Trump, who told it the way it is for 18 minutes and 43 seconds. All it appears to have done was bump up Jeb! two points in the polls.
Carson and Fiorina had about the same amount of time to talk–13 minutes and 53 seconds for Carson and 13 minutes, 29 seconds for Fiorina. Also, Christie (11 minutes, 46 seconds) had a little more to say than Rubio (11 minutes, 6 seconds), and Cruz (10:27) had less to say than Rand Paul (10:52) did.
I’m a little surprised that Jindal is still polling so low. With Scott Walker having left the race, I thought Jindal might get some of the runoff, but that doesn’t seem to have happened yet. There is a little time left until the next GOP debate that takes place on CNC October 28th, so maybe he will get the chance to speak before a wider audience.
Quinnipiac also released some poll results that pit Democratic candidates against Republican candidates in general election scenarios.
In a race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Hillary would beat The Trump 45 percent to 43 percent.
In a race between Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina, Everyday Hillary would lose to the other woman 43-44.
In a race between Hillary Clinton and Jeb! Bush, Bill Clinton’s wife would lose to George W. Bush’s brother 42-44.
In a race between Hillary Clinton and Ben Carson, the difference it makes between the two would be seven points–42 percent for her, 49 percent for him.
In a race between Bernie Sanders and those same four Republicans, Quinnipiac’s results show that Sanders would beat Trump by five percent (47-42) while tying Bush at 44 percent and losing to to Fiorina by one (43-44) and Carson by ten (39-49) (!).
The highest election threat to all of the GOP candidates right now appears to be BFD VP Joe Biden if he decided to run for president, according to Quinnipiac. Joe polled at 51 percent compared to Donald’s 40 percent–a difference of eleven points. Against Jeb!, Joe would win by five points (46 percent to 41 percent). Joe doesn’t do quite as well against Carly–46 percent to 43 percent, with a three-point advantage. The Republican candidate who fares the best against Joe Biden is Ben Carson, who would tie Joe Biden, splitting the hypothetical vote at 45 percent each.
What does all this mean?
I have a thought on that. Perhaps two. But I’ll keep this post relatively short so others can weigh in if they choose.
In case anyone was curious, the standings in the polls for the Democratic nomination show that Hillary Clinton, who had a 63 percent chance of winning the nom-nom as of July 1st, is now down around 40 percent. Senator Bernie Sanders and VP Joe Biden were both around 13 percent. Bernie’s now up to approximately 26 percent while Joe has climbed to 21 percent or thereabouts.
That currently leaves former MD Gov. Martin O’Malley, former VA Sen. Jim Webb, and former RI Sen. Lincoln Chafee at a 1 percent or less chance of winning the Democratic nomination. None of those three have been much of a factor in that race. That could change (or maybe not) when the first Democratic debate airs on CNN October 16th.
