Donald Trump criticises administration’s deployment of new force to Iraq

“That is stunning. A Republican candidate for president urged violence to silence his critics”.

In a seven-page internal memo, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s executive director Ward Baker lays out a game plan for Republicans running for Senate in 2016 to ride Trump’s populist fervor while dodging the brash billionaire’s controversy-prone candidacy should he win the party’s presidential nomination.

In a November poll by Quinnipiac, Carson was virtually tied with Trump at 23 percent to Trump’s 24 percent.

Each of the candidates from the Republicans will speak at the forum that is led Sheldon Adelson the casino magnate who has donated large sums of money to Republican causes and candidates.

Carson – the soft-spoken physician who had surprisingly topped surveys in recent months but whose campaign has since been hurt by questions about his accounts of a violent childhood – dropped 7 percentage points in the Quinnipiac University poll.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush came next with just 5 percent, and no other candidate tops 3 percent. His favorability rating with Republicans has actually improved a tick, from 48/42 the last poll to now 50/39. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley had 2 percent, with 6 percent undecided. The sample included both landline and cell phone respondents.

The polls matches up well with what other polls are saying about the state of the Republican presidential race.

Trump wins the support of 27 percent of Republican voters in this poll, while Sen.

Clinton beat Trump 47 percent to 41 percent. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unleashed on his party Thursday morning an off-the-cuff remarks decrying Ted Cruz and Donald Trump’s bombastic rhetoric toward abortion and immigration. Simply put, Trump still has a tight grip on a plurality of the Republican primary electorate.

He added that the country needed a president that calls the enemy by its name – radical Islamic terrorism.

“I would do that”, Trump said, noting he went to University of Pennsylvania’s business school in Philadelphia.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio gained to second place with 17%.

However, Trump also has the opportunity to gain support if Ben Carson continues to fade in the polls.

John Kasich shot first but Donald Trump has guns of his own, and vowed to use them. Even then, the only polls that really matter will be the ones in Iowa; national polls are much less relevant.

A leaked memo from a top Republican campaign strategist reveals the depth of the party’s concern over the possibility that Donald Trump will become the party’s presidential nominee, suggesting that at least some officials see that as a threat to control of the Senate.