Several GOP Candidates Beat Clinton in New National Poll; Ben Carson Beats Her -- By Ten Points

I like Ben Carson, but I don't really understand why he gets a pass for being so slow in answering questions.

Seems a lot of people really like Ben Carson too.

One of the only major candidates she beats is Donald Trump -- but she only edges him.

Bad poll for Hillary.

[The Quinnipiac] survey showed Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has been trading the lead with Trump in GOP primary polls, with a 50-40 percent lead over the Democratic front-runner.

Good Lord. Here's why that edge is so huge:

According to Quinnipiac, Clinton's lead among women "evaporates" when she's pitted against Carson. Women break for him over Clinton, 45-44 percent.

And the rest of the field does well, Rubio and Christie doing the second-best against her, Cruz topping her a little more narrowly:

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio also beats Clinton, 46-41 percent; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz beats her 46-43 percent; and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie beats her 46-41 percent.

Clinton still leads Trump, 46-43 percent.

Eh, "not terrific, not great" as Trump would say, but striking distance.

Rubio is a terrific politician -- but it's just not true, as the Establishment is now trying to sell us on, that Rubio is the only guy who can beat Clinton.

Rubio may be the only guy the Establishment likes who can beat Clinton, but he's not the only guy who can beat Clinton. Ben Carson, apparently, would destroy her, and the "unelectable" Ted Cruz could beat her too.

As for the race within the Republican primary, Quinnipiac finds that Trump and Carson are virtually tied, with Cruz and Rubio bringing up the rear, and Jeb collapsing.

Trump gets 24 percent of Republican votes, with Carson at 23 percent, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 14 percent, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas at 13 percent, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 4 percent...

Yesterday NBC/WSJ put out a poll showing Carson ahead of Trump, 29-23. Basically, I'd say, they're neck and neck, but the general trend is that Trump's about where he always is, and Carson is climbing.

As a matter of fact, the average of the primary pols over the last 107 days says that Ben Carson is your new national front-runner, not Trump.

Meanwhile, some arguing among the candidates on amnesty/immigration: Christie has decided it's his moment to do something, I guess, and ripped Rubio for refusing to say he'd cancel Obama's executive amnesties.

Laura Ingraham played clip of Rubio answering a question on executive amnesty (DACA, and the one for adults), and Christie lit him up:

RUBIO audio replay of earlier response to Jorge Ramos]: "We have two executive actions. The first was DACA which applies to young people that arrived in this country very young age before they were adults and I don’t think we can immediately revoke that. I think it will have to end at some point, and I hope it will end because of some reform to the immigration laws. It cannot be the permanent policy of the United States but I'm not calling for it to be revoked tomorrow or this week or right away."

Christie: It's hard to keep up with how many times Marco changes his positions on these things, to tell you the truth. I've said very clearly that the President's conduct here is illegal. And, it seems to me, I’ve been talking about lawlessness, Laura, on the campaign trail a lot and it’s getting a lot of reaction; you can’t act in a lawless manner as the President of the United States and expect that people are going to follow you. And, not have a sense of the justice that applies to everyone in this country. If the President's executive orders are illegal, which I believe they are, then they need to be revoked the first day you get into office.

He went after Rubio again, but you have to go Hot Air for that.

Rubio, for his part, attacked the anti-amnesty chops not of Christie, but of Donald Trump.

"Well first of all, Donald was a supporter of amnesty and the DREAM Act, he changed his position on those issues just to run for president," Rubio said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom."

Donald Trump went after Rubio on his... credit cards?

“For years, I’ve been hearing that his credit cards are a disaster," Trump said about Rubio on Tuesday, as he publicly released his new book in Trump Tower.

Thunder B. notes that this is almost certainly a reference to charges he used official-business credit cards assigned to him by the Florida House for personal expenses.

You know, I'm an immigration hawk myself, which is why I'm Trump curious. For anyone else who's an immigration hawk, I'd suggest giving Carson's position a look -- he's pro-wall as well, and his statements on immigration seem to me to be more consistent than Trump's. Trump will say we're going to deport them all one day, then the next day say "We're going to let all the good ones in."

Carson's position is that illegals will be legalized through a guest worker program, but they won't be allowed to vote, and they won't be allowed to become citizens. Which seems more doable to me.

The one thing is: We'd have to get rid of that Birthright Citizenship, if you're permitting non-citizens to remain in the country. Young working people have kids, and I don't want to mint new citizens with rights to remain in American just because we're extending a kindness to immigrant workers.

posted by Ace at 03:29 PM

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