All the pollsters are bringing out new national Republican primary polls in a bid to help determine which candidates make it into Thursday night's Fox News debate and which are shunted into the JV pre-show.
Bloomberg and
CBS News are out with new polls and the results at the top of the field are similar: Donald Trump, Jeb! Bush, Scott Walker, and Mike Huckabee, with Trump leading Bush by 11 points in each case. This is, of course,
great news for Jeb!, who reportedly welcomes Trump sucking up potential support from Walker, feeling the Wisconsin governor—rather than the guy currently leading him by double digits—is his big competition.
Trump draws 21 percent support in the Bloomberg poll and 24 percent from CBS News, with Bush at 10 percent and 13 percent, Walker at eight and 10, and Huckabee drawing eight percent in both polls. From there, differences emerge, with CBS showing a three-way tie for fifth—Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson each have six percent—while Bloomberg puts Rubio at six percent, Carson matched with Rand Paul at five percent, and Cruz tied with Chris Christie and John Kasich at four percent. That would be the cut-off point for the top 10 going into the debate if things were up to Bloomberg. CBS, on the other hand, puts Kasich outside the top 10, below Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry. Kasich's been in the top 10 of other recent polls, though, so he's likely safe.
These polls give most of the candidates something to celebrate, however halfheartedly—Trump because he continues to have a huge lead on his competitors, Bush because he's so excited to have Trump doing well, Perry and Jindal because at least there's one poll that shows them in the top 10 (counting ties), and of course the candidates like Kasich and Christie who are now pretty well assured varsity debate slots after having been in doubt. Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Jim Gilmore, and George Pataki are really the only candidates with nothing to celebrate, though I'm betting Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are not exactly thrilled with their middle-of-the-pack, lower-end-of-the-upper-tier status.