Could low-key neurosurgeon Ben Carson become the GOP's sleeper candidate turned 2016 nominee? Or is his second-place status in the polls just a blip, much like that of many GOP front-runners in 2012 before their stars plummeted?
Two polls this week show Carson presently trouncing all the GOP establishment candidates and potentially providing the only real challenge to Donald Trump. A national PPP survey of GOP voters put Trump at 29 percent and Carson at 15 percent—no other candidate even made it into double digits. Meanwhile, a Monmouth University poll of Iowa Republicans found Trump and Carson deadlocked at 23 percent with the only other candidate to break double digits being Carly Fiorina at 10 percent.
But in some ways Carson's biggest strengths in the polls are his favorability and the fact that he's managed to top Trump in a couple demographic groups (where Trump has completely dominated of late).
His favorable rating among likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa was a towering 81 percent in the Monmouth University poll, with only 6 percent holding an unfavorable view.
Mr. Carson tied with Mr. Trump for the top spot in the poll at 23 percent, and pulled ahead of him with female voters and evangelical Christians.
“After more than a month of Trump winning virtually every Republican demographic group, we’ve finally got a little variation in voting blocs to talk about,” Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth Poll, said in a statement.
Head below the fold to learn more about Carson's star power.
Of course, in many ways, Carson is the anti-Trump—playing a soft-spoken, understated professorial type to Trump's brash, bombastic businessman schtick. But that distinction seems to be more stylistic than anything. What they share is that neither has any experience in elected office and both have a propensity for espousing loony beliefs (though Carson has recently worked with his advisers to temper that tendency).
On a visit to the southern border, he called for the use of armed drones to target smugglers’ caves — a major policy shift from the current use of drones for surveillance only. [...]
Mr. Carson has also accused Planned Parenthood of opening most of its clinics in black neighborhoods “to control that population.” The statement was debunked by various news media fact-checkers, including The Washington Post, which gave the claim “four Pinocchios.”
So in short, Ben Carson's policies are just crazy enough to pick up the support of the same GOP base that has embraced The Donald. If for any reason Trump were to implode, Carson could step in. In fact, he's universally more well liked at this point (a magical status that often fades under more scrutiny), and frankly, his policies are more in line with the GOP base (he supports a flat tax, despises Obamacare, and has called the global warming debate "irrelevant"). In fact, Carson was the most frequently named second-choice candidate of GOP voters in the PPP survey and only Ted Cruz scored above him as a second choice among Iowa voters.