Cruz Questions Donald Trump’s Muslim

But rarely, if ever, has a high-profile candidate treated truth and accuracy as contemptuously as Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. That’s the measure of support that counts. Trump supporters are likely to be unwavering.

He’s now supported by 25 to 30 percent of the 25 to 30 percent of Americans who self-identify as Republicans, notes data guru Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight. The margin of error on the head-to-head questions is 2.8 percent.

As Mr. Silver points out, that’s about as many Americans as believe the moon landings were faked. But most Republicans – about 65 to 70 percent – aren’t for Trump and aren’t going to be for him in the long run.

STEELE: They are. They have similar appeals to the base.

To make it a clean sweep the Chicago Tribune skewered Trump yesterday and the Baltimore Sun has reprinted a thinly veiled Los Angeles Times attack on Trump, et al concerns about Syrian refugees.

In addition, Trump mocked a New York Times reporter who has a congenital condition that affects joint movement.

That’s certainly possible, at least where the nomination is concerned.

“If you look to the records of all the Republican candidates, there’s a big difference between my record and that of everyone else if you ask who has stood up to Washington”, he said. His lead did start to slip a bit in September and October – but that was because Ben Carson was gaining ground more than it was because Trump was faltering. They’re different demographics, generally speaking.

All this strengthens the case for Cruz breaking out of the GOP pack soonest, as an unquestioned true conservative of tea-party roots, and perhaps the major beneficiary of Carson slippage among evangelical voters expected to be decisive in the outcome of the kickoff Iowa caucuses.

The heavy retail-style campaigning that some candidates have been emphasizing – over, say, Trump’s massive rallies – tend to pay dividends in her state, Horn said. However, that number was down from a peak of 43% on November 22, Reuters reported on Saturday. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, or even Christie – to gobble up the rest of the party’s voters.

Which is the third and final point here: Something huuuggge would have to change in this calculation for Trump to sit in the Oval Office in an official capacity. The one thing about Ted Cruz that I find very interesting and smart is while everybody has been focused on the bright shining object that is Donald Trump, he has been methodically laying the ground for just such an occasion, to sort of move into a position to challenge for the lead and it’s not – it’s not about the national polls as you well know, Andrea, national polls mean absolutely butt kiss right now. But in today’s polarized political America, Trump is viewed extremely negatively by Democrats. “If he wins Iowa and New Hampshire, how do they stop him?” Perhaps more important, neoconservative foreign-policy hawks, general establishment Republicans, and current GOP lawmakers might be inclined to sit on their hands.

– Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump knows that inflammatory statements get a lot of media coverage – and he’s made a lot of them lately.