GOP presidential candidates campaign hard in Iowa

Such a lack of trust, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, might be astonishing if we were not already accustomed to hearing about it – about our politicians in general and about these two candidates in particular.

Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll said this anomaly has been apparent over months of polling. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

Horse race polls have become the junk food of political journalism. But identifying who they are and how many is almost impossible. “He’s a guy that when you look at him and you listen to him talk, he speaks with authority, and I just see this as a train that they can’t derail”. In 2012, Mitt Romney was leading in December, and then got the nomination. Eight years ago, Mike Huckabee had a Trump-sized lead over John McCain; a year later, Huckabee was looking for work as a television host.

Rubio offers a mixture of fear and optimism on the campaign trail: dire warnings of “radical apocalyptic jihadists” and Russia’s “gangster” President Vladimir Putin are followed by reminders that America remains the land of freedom and opportunity. Across so many personal and political dimensions, it is hard to imagine someone more distant in style and substance from Trump than Ryan. In Trump, he has finally found a candidate whom he believes to be is honest and authentic.

How do I know that? About 43 percent say Trump is helping the GOP’s image, and 40 percent say he has hurt it. Slightly more than half of Republicans said the USA needs a leader like him but also said he needed to “better control how he says things”.

In a further appeal to the potential room of caucus-goers, Trump lauded their first in the nation status, calling it “sacred” and promising that their voting slot will not change if they elect him. However, Donald gained no support from the present American President Barack Obama. It’s a sequential process, too; the outcome of one contest influences voters in the next.

“I think Rubio is on everyone’s “maybe” list”, New Hampshire political strategist Fergus Cullen, a former state Republican Party chairman, told AFP.

Fifty-nine percent said the same of Trump. Since the caucuses are February 1, that means you can safely ignore the candidates’ rankings until after Christmas.

But how long does Trump have to stay at No. 1 in the Republican polls before establishmentarians in both parties recognize that the underlying economic causes of his supporters’ discontent are real, legitimate, and deserve a response? The angry Republican working class rallying to Trump to express its disillusionment with the status quo will find little in Ryan’s homily to make them reconsider. One day, Trump was up a round, and Carson was up in the next.

Polls do have some value, of course.

“We’re going to be so vigilant”. Ted Cruz, 22 point over retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and 24 point lead over Florida Sen.

Good polls can also tell us what’s driving the voters – why, for example, so many Republicans are opting for unconventional “outsider” candidates this year.