Ben Carson Now Leads Republican Race Nationwide

After months of leading in the 2016 Republican presidential race, Donald Trump has fallen to second place, according to a new national poll released Tuesday.

A new survey conducted by CBS News and the New York Times shows that 26% of likely voters in the US Republican primaries would choose Carson as the party’s presidential nominee, compared to 22% who would pick Trump.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio garnered 8 percent support in the new poll, with Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina at 7 percent each. “Disproportionate focus today on a poll that, for now, is an outlier by showing him behind Carson nationally”, Silver said on Twitter.

Trump remains in the lead in the first primary state, New Hampshire, with a more than 15-point advantage there.

Talk it out: When the two meet face to face Wednesday night for the third Republican debate in Boulder, Colorado, Trump and Carson will again be planted center stage and no doubt given plenty of opportunities by the moderators to iron out their issues on live television.

Carson has argued that he made plenty of business decisions as director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

In the 1970s, he struck out on his own by constructing several buildings in Manhattan, many of which now bear the Trump name.

“The other thing I’ve learned – but that I knew – is how stupid our politicians are”, he said.

Christie was at 1 percent, down from 3 percent last month. But while more than half of Trump voters say their minds are made up about their support, 79 percent of Carson’s voters say they could change their minds.

Four polls now show Trump behind Carson in Iowa, with the latest Monmouth University Poll putting Carson on top by 14 points; and aLoras College poll giving Carson the nod by 31 percent to 19 percent. Former neurosurgeon Ben Carson supplanted Trump at the top of both surveys.

But Trump placing doubts on Carson’s religion might not endear him to Iowans – a state where Carson is now polling better than Trump – whose evangelical voters are numerous, influential and active.

“Trump has a point”, Nate Silver, a renowned statistician who closely follows elections, said.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.