Cruz Surges To First Place In New Iowa Poll

Trump has often derided the Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest newspaper, as biased against him. Carson faced the biggest decline, losing 15 percent and falling from front-runner to third place.

Cruz is the top choice among 31 percent of the state’s GOP caucus voters, according to a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll, up from 10 percent in an October Bloomberg survey. A Fox News survey of South Carolina Republicans found an 8 percent increase in support for Trump following those comments.

Cruz and Trump will face off on Tuesday in Las Vegas at the next Republican presidential debate, sponsored by CNN.

Cruz’s boost in support comes as Trump faces pushback from some over his call to temporarily halt Muslim immigrants from entering the U.S.

Rubio, a Florida U.S. senator who has framed himself as someone who can deliver “a new American century”, is in fourth place with 10%.

Cruz dominates yet another gauge the poll takes of candidates’ strength, the “Selzer Score”, which uses multiple measures to try to assess potential upside in a crowded field.

Several attendees at Trump’s town hall event said in interviews before he spoke that they were torn between supporting Trump and Cruz, underscoring the risks each man faces going after the other too strongly.

“You have one of the most dishonest right here in your backyard”, Trump said at a rally in Des Moines on Friday.

This is the second time Trump has polled second in a string of Iowa polls – the first coming in mid-October when respondents placed Carson as the Hawkeye State’s favorite.

In fact, if Cruz reacts the way his recent actions would seem to indicate, it will only serve to bolster Trump in the minds of voters who don’t want a truckling wimp for a candidate.

Most alarming for all of the candidates who have dropped in support is former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.

Two establishment candidates’ positions in the race remain largely unchanged.

Speaking at a rally, the GOP frontrunner questioned whether Cruz will be able to win over the evangelical Christian vote, saying: ‘I do like Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba’.

The poll of 400 likely Republican caucus-goers was conducted December 7-10. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Vander Plaats is CEO of the Family Leader, an important social conservative organization in Iowa. And an additional 20 percent indicated that Cruz would be their second choice.

Trump, after first offering praise for Cruz, fired back on Friday night – although in a gentler manner than his past attacks on other GOP rivals.