Carly Fiorina Jumps Into Second Place In Race For GOP Nomination

Fiorina skyrocketed from just 3 percent earlier in the month to second place at 15 percent in the CNN/ORC poll.

Driving Trump’s drop and Fiorina’s rise: a debate in which 31% of Republicans who watched said Trump was the loser, and 52% identified Fiorina as the victor . Donald Trump has relentlessly attacked her, claiming her business record proves she is not worthy of the presidency. She easily vaulted over retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who seems to do well in retail politics but comes across in debates as extremely mild-mannered and reasonable, not a great approach in the reality-TV cauldron of the 2016 GOP presidential race.

“This is just the opening of the spigot”, Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon said of the stream of candidates passing through South Carolina.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a young and determined candidate from Florida, thrust his way into fourth place. His improvement was credited to a strong foreign policy position flashed in the debate, according to Yahoo News. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee were tied at 6, Kentucky U.S. Sen.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum: 1%. “The only poll that matters is the big one“. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Lindsey Graham, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former New York Gov. George Pataki and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.

During the second Republican debate – hosted by CNN Wednesday night – Fiorina took a measured and careful approach to how she answered questions about immigration.

Donald Trump continues to have a commanding lead, with 24 percent support. While Republican leaders have sought to win over Hispanic voters in recent years as the nation’s electorate has become less white, conservative primary voters have refused to fall in line, instead backing candidates like Trump, who vowed to build border walls and kick out the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. “I’m in first place in every poll, but gained substantially in a couple of them”.

“My name’s Snick and you’re going to have to carry me”, she closed out to loud applause.

About 44 percent of likely GOP voters say they see Trump as the candidate who could best handle the economy – well ahead of his nearest competitors: Fiorina at 11 percent, Rubio at 10 percent and Bush at 8 percent. “But if Trump’s performance in the second debate, and what he has said/how he has acted since, is any guide, I count myself as skeptical that he will be able to launch a more substantive phase of the race”.