GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson moved up in Iowa to tie GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, but Trump remains the top pick among GOP voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina, according to a new CBS News poll.
New Hampshire ranking:
- Donald Trump – 38 percent
- Ben Carson – 12 percent
- Jeb Bush – 8 percent
- Marco Rubio – 7 percent
- Carly Fiorina – 7 percent
- Ted Cruz – 5 percent
- John Kasich – 5 percent
- Rand Paul – 4 percent
- Chris Christie – 2 percent
- Lindsey Graham – 1 percent
- Rick Santorum – 1 percent
Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and George Pataki are all at zero percent in New Hampshire.
South Carolina results:
- Donald Trump – 40 percent
- Ben Carson – 23 percent
- Ted Cruz – 8 percent
- Marco Rubio – 7 percent
- Jeb Bush – 6 percent
- Carly Fiorina – 3 percent
- Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham – 2 percent
- Rick Santorum, Chris Christie, Rand Paul – 1 percent
- Jim Gilmore, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki – 0 percent
In Iowa, Trump and Carson tied with 27 percent. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) came in third in Iowa with 12 percent, while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) came in fourth with 9 percent. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took the last stop in the top five in Iowa with 6 percent.
Carly Fiorina and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) have three percent each in Iowa. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum have two percent, while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has one percent.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), former New York Gov. George Pataki, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore are registering zero in Iowa.
Trump held a slight lead over Carson in Iowa last month, but CBS News reports that Carson has gained ground with more support from white evangelicals. Carson also does better with female voters in Iowa, but Trump has more support among male voters.
The CBS News poll is more favorable to Trump than two recent polls, a Des Moines Register poll and a Quinnipiac poll, which both showed Carson leading Trump in Iowa.
CBS News pointed out that Iowa voters aren’t seeing many of the candidates as satisfactory choices.
“In Jeb Bush’s case, not only is he trailing and mired in single digits, but more than half of Republicans would be dissatisfied with him as the nominee. Bush, Christie and Paul elicit similar satisfaction in Iowa and South Carolina, suggesting all those candidates have a great deal of work to do turning around perceptions in the next three months,” CBS News reported.
In all three states – Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – Dr. Ben Carson’s numbers show he would satisfy the most GOP voters.
According to the CBS News results, populism is driving GOP politics:
Republican voters in all three states are likely to say the party isn’t paying enough attention to the middle class. Voters are more likely to say the party is paying too much attention to its large donors and to the wealthy.
Donald Trump’s backers are strongly likely to voice this complaint. At least six in ten in New Hampshire and Iowa want the party to pay more attention to the middle class. Most of Trump’s voters – and most of Carson’s – in South Carolina think the party is paying too much attention to donors.
The poll found that balancing the budget and repealing Obamacare are at the top of the voter list in all three states. The details on the sample size of the survey can be read here.