Scott Walker implodes, Carly Fiorina soars in new CNN poll

Front-runnER Donald Trump began the second Republican presidential debate with a bang, throwing barbs in all directions, but was quiet for long stretches as 10 fellow candidates for the 2016 presidential nomination bore down on serious
issues.

That doesn’t bother Fiorina supporter Chris Elliott, a florist, who told the Times, “I don’t have any uncomfortable feelings about her getting kicked out at HP”. The 11 contenders qualified for the main debate based on poll standings, while a lower-performing set of four candidates discussed issues at an earlier event.

The CNN/ORC poll was conducted September 17-19 and surveyed 1,006 adult Americans, including 924 registered voters – 444 of whom are Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP. His closest rival in the polls is another outsider, neurosurgeon Ben Carlson, a soft-spoken social conservative who has won broad support among evangelical Christian voters. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio follows with 7 percent while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee both polling at 6 percent.

Trump said he fielded “the toughest questions” on the CNN telecast – as he did in the first debate on Fox News Channel – and that 47 percent of the questions were Trump-related.

Fiorina’s emergence, however, is hardly indicative of where she will be by the time the voting starts, or even where she will be next month. But that figure represents an 8 percent drop, from 32 percent in a similar poll conducted earlier this month. Results carry a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

The DNC attacked Fiorina’s record at Hewlett-Packard and said she misrepresented Democrats’ position on immigration reform, as well as falsely describing Planned Parenthood videos at Wednesday’s contest. He said he’d stay out of the Syrian civil war, credited himself with opposing the Iraq war and described his foreign policy in terms of diplomatic negotiation with tough customers around the world.

Trump said it wouldn’t be hard to do away with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which grants US citizenship to those born in the United States. “And so the things that might have caused you to be afraid about something – I’m not afraid”. The second most affecting moment of the debate was when she talked about how she had buried a stepchild due to drug addiction.