Trump leads in latest Iowa poll
In a new CNN/ORC poll real estate developer Donald Trump leads polls in Iowa for likely Republican voters and former Iowa favorite Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has dropped.
Despite comparing the brash, outspoken New Yorker to Democrats, Walker has been unable to stop the Trump tide from sweeping over what many considered Walker’s home turf: the Iowa Caucuses.
Trump has a comfortable 22 percent with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in second place with 14 percent and Walker comes in third with 9 percent. Right behind them is Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee with 8 percent.
Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina come in behind Huckabee with 7 percent, while Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are tied with former Florida Governor — GOP establishment favorite — Jeb Bush with 5 percent. The rest of the field is at or below 3 percent.
For the Republican establishment, who had predicted Donald Trump’s flame would burn out with the more serious and conservative Iowa voters, this is especially troublesome news. They don’t know what to do about or with Trump, who has never really denounced a single-payer health care system and has never publicly supported a ban on abortions. Not to mention, he has exposed the party’s powerfully potent underbelly of racism, xenophobia and sexism.
If ever the Republican Party has built a club the Democrats can use to beat them over the head with, it’s Donald Trump and his views on women, immigrants, Hispanics and “traditional values,” and the raucous approval he gets from the party’s rank and file voters. Regardless of what conservative pundits want to suggest, Donald Trump appears to represent what their party’s voters believe.
With the Iowa Caucuses just five months away, the GOP establishment finds itself in a bit of a pickle. The more they try to get rid of him, the more the base embraces “The Donald.” Maybe even more worrisome for the GOP: many Trump supporters point to his role on “The Apprentice” television series as Trump’s experience in dealing with problems and crisis and the reason they support him.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Republican Party chose an actor to be its nominee for president.
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