Support for 2016 GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson falls, Ted Cruz rises

A new NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll shows that Donald Trump is back in the lead (28%) among Republican primary voters.

“I find that Utahns feel that Trump is loud, arrogant and really not suitable to be commander in chief of the United States”, pollster Dan Jones said.

For Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party, the sample size is 374, with a margin of error of +/-6.1 percentage points.

Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) is the only other Republican in double digits, inching up from 10 to 11 percent over the past month. Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) runs fourth, with 8 percent, up from 6 percent in October.

Most of the other Republican candidates also say they’d be willing to commit ground forces to fight ISIS, but they don’t say how many.

In the Bloomberg poll, Republican voters said Trump was better able than Carson to deal with Islamic terrorism, 55 percent to 29 percent. In addition, only 239 registered Republicans participated in the portion of the poll pertaining specifically to the GOP candidates.

Mr Trump cites the opening speech of his campaign, where he warned that Mexico was sending its “criminals and rapists” to the USA, as a defining moment in the Republican presidential race.

All four top GOP contenders lead Hillary Clinton in hypothetical matchups, the poll found, with the Democratic front-runner posting troubling numbers in a key swing state.

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson leads the GOP field in Utah. A Seventh-day Adventist, Carson regularly shares how his beliefs have shaped his life and his politics.

“Among the candidates, he’s been the most prominent talking about the importance of religion to him”, University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank said, something voters can identify with in a predominantly Mormon state.

80 year-old Bobby Phillips, a veteran who served six years in the National Guard, said in Knoxville that he’s simply “through with politicians” and touted Trump’s ability to surround himself with the best advisers. But in the last three weeks, Carson has lost a quarter of that support. “That’s a quality Utahns value”. This is what took place to Ben Carson over the past two weeks, as he came under scrutiny for biographical details in his memoir & criticism for his lack of foreign analysis experience. When you try to hit your mother over the head with a hammer, when you do the things that he said in his book, I think they’re very bad acts. Carson doesn’t talk foreign policy particularly well, nor does he seem well-matched for the tough guy role.

“I think his attitude will get him through it”, said Gracie Blevins, a Harlan, Kentucky resident attending the Knoxville rally, adding that the US needs a “bold and blunt person” in the White House. But Hilman said that if Romney suddenly got into the race, she would have to give him another look.

An endorsement by Romney would carry considerable weight among voters in Utah and other states, Jones said.

Utah Republicans will vote on their presidential preferences at their mass meetings on March 22, which is a departure from the traditional presidential primary that is usually held in June. I want to know where they came from.

Rhodes said Carson is excited to return to Iowa on Friday and plans to “be back a lot in December”.