After Falling Behind Ben Carson In Iowa, Donald Trump Claims The Polls Are “Wrong”
Well, that took no time at all. After two successive GOP polls in Iowa showed Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump ceding his lead to Sleepytime Tea endorser Ben Carson this week, the burnt marshmallow predictably went on the attack. Being that it is Trump we’re talking about, he did his usual tactic of recycling old material and promoting vague conspiracies while criticizing both Carson and the two pollsters who show the retired neurosurgeon grabbing a commanding lead in the state.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Florida Friday night, the celebrity billionaire said that Quinnipiac and Bloomberg, the two polling organizations who now show Carson up by 8-10 points among GOP candidates in Iowa, don’t like him and are therefore skewing the polls in Carson’s favor. Of course, earlier on the campaign trail, Trump had boasted about his leads in both polls, calling the groups “highly respected,” among other things. But now that they show him falling in Iowa, they fucking suck and have a beef with him. Or something.
Trump also decided to ditch his promise not to attack his fellow outsider opponent, going all out against the good doctor. (Who didn’t see that one coming?) In doing so, he used the same tired lines he has tossed at former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, labeling Carson as “low energy”. He also made fun of Carson by saying that he wasn’t aware of the new polls because he was sleeping. Earlier this month, Trump said he wasn’t interested in going after Carson despite his rise in the polls since the former Fox News personality hadn’t personally attacked him.
Of course, that all goes out the window once Trump sees himself not being in first place somewhere. And the fact that two consecutive surveys show Carson, whose campaign has a very solid strategy of rounding up votes in Iowa and other early states, has jumped way ahead obviously has the orange one nervous. Besides ridiculing Carson for his sleepy demeanor, the Trumpster also highlighted his reliance on Super PACs, something that Trump has claimed he has distanced himself from after the Washington Post ran a story about his campaign coordinating with at least one PAC.
From his speech Friday night:
“I hear in Iowa that there’s going to be a merger of Ben Carson — and I like him, he’s a nice guy — they’re going to merge their super PACs. He’s got two of them and they’re going to run, and they’ve been running his campaign and he doesn’t hardly have to go there. And I’m saying, ‘What am I, why — I’m not allowed to do anything?’
It’s really unfair, but I think they shouldn’t be allowed to do that, I don’t know if they’re allowed to do that, but how do you have super PACs running campaigns?”
Nationally, Trump continues to lead the Republican field, with Carson solidly in second place. The next tier includes Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Bush and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Trump’s average in the recent national polls is 27%, with Carson closing in at 21%. No one else is above 10%. However, it does appear that Trump’s support has capped out in the mid-20s, as he hasn’t seen any real growth in over a month while Carson and Rubio have moved forward. (Trump has lobbed many attack grenades Rubio’s way over the past few weeks.)
Below is video of some of Friday’s speech, courtesy of ABC News:
