So there was one big question this week: Would Ben Carson’s very excellent Friday Flameout show up in the GOP primary polling? The answer is, who the heck knows! Because after a non-stop spigot of primary polling the last several months, this week was oddly quiet.
Carson’s really bad Friday was November 6. There was no polling released conducted entirely after Friday, and just two that were in the field at that time:
|
TRUMP |
CARSON |
RUBIO |
CRUZ |
YouGov/Economist |
11/5-9
|
32 |
18 |
13 |
10 |
10/23-27 |
32 |
18 |
11 |
8 |
Morning Consult |
11/5-8 |
34 |
19 |
7 |
7 |
10/28-11/1 |
31 |
21 |
7 |
9 |
Not much there to go on. YouGov sees the race between the top two 100 percent unchanged, with Rubio and Cruz gaining at the expense of ha ha ha ha Jeb Bush (who went from 10 percent to 3 percent in that two-week span. Morning Consult, on the other hand, sees a net gain by Donald Trump of five points, with the rest of the ballot pretty much unchanged (and Bush actually gaining a point, from seven to eight).
That means we’ll have to wait another week to see if Ben Carson’s “the liberal media made me lie in my book all those years ago because I’m so honest” schtick will actually gain traction.
Now’s as good a time as any to marvel of the steadiness of Trump’s support.
You have the dredges there at the bottom, with the little “audition bumps” from Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, and Jeb Bush, all now now fading to black. You can also see Marco Rubio’s current audition bump which might stick because who the hell else will the establishment turn to next? Mitt Romney may be their only option. Ted Cruz’s strategy of laying low and ready to pick up Trump or Carson defectors is paying off, since he’s the natural home for disaffected Carson supporters. It’s no accident his rise in the chart above coincides with Carson’s little dip.
Beyond the national numbers, there were no new Iowa or New Hampshire numbers this week. There was a South Carolina survey done by PPP, 11/7-8, that showed Trump leading Carson 25-21, with Cruz at 15 and Rubio at 13. In its previous survey in early September Trump led 37-21, with Cruz at 6 and Rubio at 4. So it’s just one data point, but it suggests that Carson is treading water while Trump’s national firewall doesn’t exist in the Palmetto State. Then again, it’s just one poll.
On the Democratic Side, there were three new polls since I checked in last week:
|
CLINTON |
SANDERS |
CBS/TIMES |
11/6-10 |
52 |
33 |
10/4-8 |
46 |
27 |
YOUGOV/ECONOMIST |
11/5-9
|
59 |
31 |
10/23-27 |
61 |
29 |
MORNING CONSULT |
11/5-8 |
54 |
28 |
10/29-11/1 |
56 |
26 |
Both YouGov and Morning Consult have Bernie Sanders gaining a net +4, so maybe the glow from Hillary Clinton’s first debate performance and Benghazi inquisition has faded a bit. The trendlines in the CBS/Times poll is from before those events, so that movement looks more dramatic than warranted.
Per the aggregate, Sanders went from 30.1 percent a week ago, to 31.7 this week (+1.6). Clinton went from 54.4 to 56.1 (+1.7). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this kind of parallel rise. It’s kind of amazing, actually.
And yeah yeah yeah there’s some other dude in the race. He’s that purple line in the cellar. Whatever.
Nothing new in Iowa or New New Hampshire, but we do have that PPP poll in South Carolina, and this one shows Clinton leading Sanders 72-18. Holy shit. The previous poll from early September was 54-9. We also have a Monmouth University poll that gives Clinton a 69-21 advantage (no trendlines).
South Carolina really shows the limits of the Sanders coalition and his continued inability to bust through beyond it. We’ll know if he’s making headway if he busts through that 30 percent line in the national polling and starts getting into the mid- to high 30s.