Look Who's Narrowly Ahead of Hillary in Iowa . . .
Take a look at this Quinnipiac poll and cue "O Fortuna": In a come-from-behind rally, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the choice of 41 percent of Iowa likely Democratic Caucus participants, with 40 percent picking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and 12 percent backing Vice President Joseph Biden, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. This compares to results of a July 2 survey by the independent Quinnipiac University showing Clinton at 52 percent, with 33 percent for Sanders and 7 percent for Biden.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Trump-mentum continues: Donald Trump has become the first Republican presidential candidate to top 30% support in the race for the Republican nomination, according to a new CNN/ORC poll, which finds the businessman pulling well away from the rest of the GOP field. Trump gained 8 points since August to land at 32% support, and has nearly tripled his support since just after he launched his campaign in June. The new poll finds former neurosurgeon Ben Carson rising 10 points to land in second place with 19%. Together, these two non-politicians now hold the support of a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, and separately, both are significantly ahead of all other competitors. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush stands in third place with 9%, down 4 points since August, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz holds fourth place with 7%. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker follow at 5%, with all other candidates at 3% or less, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who notched the only other statistically significant shift in the poll by falling 5 points since August. 'Look at That Face! Would Anyone Vote for That?' Oh, I see. Donald Trump thinks Carly Fiorina isn't physically attractive enough to hold the office of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, William H. Taft, Grover Cleveland, and Rutherford B. Hayes. With his blue tie loosened and slung over his shoulder, Trump sits back to digest his meal and provide a running byplay to the news. Onscreen, they've cut away to a spot with Scott Walker, the creaky-robot governor of Wisconsin. Praised by the anchor for his "slow but steady" style, Walker is about to respond when Trump chimes in, "Yeah, he's slow, all right! That's what we got already: slowwww." His staffers at the conference table howl and hoot; their man, though, is just getting warm. When the anchor throws to Carly Fiorina for her reaction to Trump's momentum, Trump's expression sours in schoolboy disgust as the camera bores in on Fiorina. "Look at that face!" he cries. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" The laughter grows halting and faint behind him. "I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?" This morning, Trump insisted he was talking about Fiorina's "persona," which would make more sense if he hadn't said, "Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" "Outrage fatigue" knows no party. President Obama floods the zone by pushing for an outrageous Iran deal, insisting that opposition to the deal amounts to warmongering, ignoring what's going on within the walls of the Planned Parenthood, renaming Mount McKinley, pushing for additional tax hikes after getting tax hikes he wanted in the last budget agreement, hiking the minimum wage again even after most states and plenty of localities have hiked it with predictable economic consequences, insisting Obamacare is working and forgetting his promises of lower premiums, pushing for un-doing the sequester which is the only significant spending cut enacted during his term . . . Obama moves forward on almost all fronts simultaneously, overwhelming the opposition. With Trump, no particular statement does much damage. The Carly comment will be forgotten within a day, maybe two, because he'll have said something else that everyone will be discussing. Meanwhile, this analysis of Trump's lead confirms what we've suspected: Trump's supporters aren't concerned about his past views and statements that aren't conservative because they aren't particularly conservative. First, Trump's support is not particularly ideological. In recent YouGov polls, 20 percent of his supporters describe themselves as "liberal" or "moderate," with 65 percent saying they are "conservative" and only 13 percent labeling themselves as "very conservative." Less than a third of his supporters say they are involved with the Tea Party movement. Their views put them on the right side of the American electorate, but they cover the Republican mainstream. Polling also indicates that a lot of the other candidates' early leads were soft, and built upon supporters easily peeled away: Looking at the numbers pre and post Trump's announcement reveals that among May's top five candidates, Paul, Walker and Bush lost 18, 17 and 11 percent, respectively, of their supporters to Trump, while Rubio lost 21 percent and Cruz an astonishing 47 percent to Trump. Among "leaning" Republicans, all candidates (save Rand Paul) hemorrhaged more than 20 percent to Trump, ranging from Walker's 34 percent to Cruz's 25 percent loss. Overall, among the top five back in May, Bush was hurt the least and Cruz the most, though all lost votes in the double digits to Trump. I don't think Trump will leave the race anytime soon. But if he did, it's not clear that any other GOP candidate would be the clear beneficiary: We also asked people who their second choice for the nomination was, and the results for Trump voters are somewhat surprising. Only three candidates in the large Republican field get into double digits and just barely, at that. Ben Carson is the second choice for 13 percent of Trump backers, and Carly Fiorina is the choice of 10 percent. Jeb Bush is also the second choice of 10 percent of Trump voters—about the same proportion that abandoned him for Trump. After these three candidates, second choices are widely spread, with the exception of Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, Jindal, and Perry at roughly zero percent or within error variance of zero. Sen. Cruz, who lost the most support to Trump, is the second choice of only 9 percent of Trump supporters. The Ready-for-Prime-Time Players Another good move for CNN, at least for those of us on the East Coast who don't want the GOP debate to stretch towards 11 p.m.: CNN has moved its primetime Sept. 16 Republican debate from 9 p.m. EDT to 8 p.m., eliminating the long gap between its main event and the earlier forum for second-tier candidates, the network told campaigns in a conference call Tuesday afternoon. A CNN spokesperson confirmed the time change. The earlier debate with candidates who polled at least 1 percent in three national polls will start at 6 p.m. EDT, ending at 7:45 p.m. ADDENDA: Dear God . . . Donald Trump is going for the 80s Nostalgia Vote: "I'd love to have Mike involved in some capacity. Why? Because Mike knows how to win and our politicians don't," Trump said about Hall of Fame coach Mike Ditka. "Nobody messed with Mike." Secretary of "46" Defense? | 
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