Never thought to be Conservative, Bloomberg Politics and the Des Moines Register released Saturday an Iowa survey documenting soaring public support for Ted Cruz in the early presidential primary state. They call the Trump campaign in Iowa “stalled.”
Dismissively calling Cruz “the firebrand junior senator from Texas” Bloomberg also notes he is backed by 31 percent of those likely to attend the Republican caucuses that start the presidential nomination season on Feb. 1. Trump is a distant second at 21 percent, up slightly from 19 percent in October, but below his peak of 23 percent in August.
Links to the questions and methodology are included in the story, but in summary Bloomberg.com writes:
Cruz’s 21-percentage-point jump since October is the largest surge between Iowa Polls recorded in at least the last five presidential caucus campaigns. When first and second choices are combined, he has the support of 51 percent of likely caucus-goers. The senator’s great leap forward comes largely at the expense of Carson, as Iowa’s evangelicals appear to have picked the candidate they want to get behind. The retired neurosurgeon, now barely in third-place, is supported by 13 percent, down from the first-place showing he posted in October, when he was at 28 percent.
For Iowa’s conservative voters, “the coalescing has begun,” said J. Ann Selzer, founder of Selzer & Co., the West Des Moines-based firm that conducted the poll.
The same can’t be said for the voters who describe themselves as part of the Republican establishment, which the poll recorded as 29 percent of the likely electorate. For now, Trump has 23 percent from those who consider themselves Republican establishment voters, followed by Cruz at 22 percent. Senator Marco Rubio and his one time mentor, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, are both at 12 percent.