Poll: Carson leapfrogs over Trump in Iowa
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson surges to the top of the GOP field in a new survey of likely Iowa caucus-goers, unseating former front-runner Donald Trump in the second Iowa poll released in as many days.
A Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll shows that the retired neurosurgeon is the first choice for president among 28 percent of likely caucus participants, with Trump trailing behind at 19 percent. For Carson, that's a gain of 10 percentage points since the survey was last taken in August. The billionaire business mogul has dropped four points in that time.
Carson also leads in favorability ratings, with 84 percent having a positive opinion of the candidate. The closest GOP contender is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio with a 70 percent favorability rating.
One factor in the neurosurgeon's latest outpouring of support could be the backing of Evangelical Christians, who make up 42 percent of Republicans in the poll. Carson is backed by roughly a third of the group. In August, he only had a slight lead at 21 percent over Trump among those likely caucus-goers.
The only candidate to receive support in the double digits was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in third place with 10 percent. Rubio follows closely behind at nine percent. Registering at just five percent are former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
While political outsiders remain a favorite among Iowans in the 2016 contest, one candidate vying for her first elected position hasn't gained quite the same traction as Carson or Trump: Former tech executive Carly Fiorina comes in with just four percent of support in the poll.
For Carson, the lead could signal a sea change in Iowa -- the Bloomberg/Des Moines Register survey is the second poll out this week that shows the shift in sentiment among likely Republican caucus participants. A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday also showed Carson overtaking Trump by a margin of eight percentage points, 28 - 20 percent.
Trump has not taken kindly to losing his title as the Iowa GOP's favored candidate. On Thursday, his Twitter account re-tweeted a message that implied Iowa voters were brain-damaged from eating genetically modified corn: "#BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa. Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain? #Trump#GOP"
The tweet was later deleted, and Trump announced:
The young intern who accidentally did a Retweet apologizes.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2015
The Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll was conducted out of 401 likely Iowa Republican Caucus participants on Oct. 16-19. The margin of error is 4.9 percentage points.