A new NBC Poll (full pdf below) shows candidate Donald Trump with a commanding lead over the rest of the field at 35%.  In addition 49% of those polled believe Trump will be the republican nominee.

Via NBC – With the presidential primaries in full swing, Donald Trump maintains his sizable lead over the rest of the Republican field. Among Republican or Republican-leaning registered voters, Trump has 35% support compared to 18% for Ted Cruz and 13% for Marco Rubio, according to results from the latest NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll for the week of December 28, 2015 through January 3, 2016.

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I just can’t resist – Byron York is all hearts-a-flutter because the GOPe’s best chance candidate Marco Rubio almost filled a school gymnasium tonight in South Carolina:

If boy Rubio’s crowd is “Huge”, then Trump’s crowd tonight must be… (more…)

Most Americans are unaware how close the House of Representatives came to passing the Senate ‘Gang-of-Eight’ bill in 2014 which included amnesty for illegal aliens. The vote was only stopped by the last-minute primary defeat of Eric Cantor.

However, one of the benefits if the current presidential campaigns is the lifting of the veil for the hidden advocates…

(Via Breitbart – by Julia Hahn)  Congressman Trey Gowdy’s endorsement of Sen. Marco Rubio may shine an unwanted spotlight on the South Carolinian’s record of past radical statements on immigration and his aggressive support for donor class policies embraced by Sen. Rubio.

Gowdy’s extreme immigration declarations come in addition to his long-standing support for donor-class Republican lawmakers. For instance, in a closed-door GOP leadership election in November of 2014, Gowdy seconded John Boehner’s nomination as House Speaker. Similarly, Gowdy was the Congressman who nominated Paul Ryan for Speaker. According to Politico, Boehner “secretly urged Gowdy to run” for House Majority Leader.

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A poll conducted by Clout Research for World Net Daily (full pdf below) shows candidate Donald Trump with a commanding lead amid all major demographics.  The poll also contains a small sample of Democrats (19), Independents (61), as well as Republican (365) voters.

It should be noted that generally speaking, when considering content coverage, WND has a favorable lean toward Senator Ted Cruz.  The result below is from the Republican respondents:

A review of the poll internals show Donald Trump leading with all religious affiliations. In addition Trump leads all ideologies except “strongly conservative” (far right) which favor Ted Cruz.  Hence, more statistical affirmation of what most already accept:  Donald Trump, like Ronald Reagan, is a center-right candidate.

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Every other headline will read: Gowdy supports Rubio, but the reality is more apropos when considering that Gowdy doesn’t support Ted Cruz.

This endorsement “event” should not come as a surprise to long-time readers, simply go back to the 2014 pre-mid-term assignment by Speaker Boehner of Represenative Gowdy as chairperson for the Benghazi committee, read the reams of cautionary discussion, and you’ll find the origin of this latest development.

We shall refrain from the I-told-you-so’s, instead relying more succinctly on the ‘watch what they do, not what they say’ constructs (insert picture of Mark O’Mara here if needed).

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Many people have discussed the risks of putting all your viable candidacy eggs in the evangelical basket. An article via CNN outlines a group of Super-PACs and donor interests who are now setting Ted Cruz in the cross hairs.

This CNN article highlights one of the biggest challenges for any candidate who is unable to build a broad and diverse base of support. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee are all relying heavily on Iowa voters. Similarly, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and again, Marco Rubio (firewall) are dependent on success with New Hampshire voters.

Meanwhile the breakaway frontrunner, Donald Trump, targets America-first voters, the biggest, strongest and most broad base of them all.

Washington (CNN) – Ted Cruz, staring at hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative advertisements against him in Iowa that show only signs of growing, is battling to keep pace there with his most aggressive push yet to maintain his momentum in the Hawkeye State. (more…)

When the Frontrunner holds more support than the next three candidates combined you have reached the inevitability threshold !

Everything about this CNN poll (full pdf below), and the internals showing Donald Trump as most favored/best candidate on every issue, is terrific for Team Trump.  This poll, in combination with the Reuters poll, also shows how false the agenda-driven Quinnipiac Poll was earlier in the week.

In addition to absolute dominance by candidate Trump, is the aspect of Jeb Bush dropping to seventh place.  If other national polls affirm a similar position for Bush, he could be dropped from the main-stage debate and replaced by Rand Paul.

[…]  Trump’s standing in the race for the nomination is bolstered by widely held trust that he can best handle the top issues facing the nation. Trump holds massive advantages over the rest of the field as the candidate best able to handle the: ♦ economy (57% Trump, his next closest competitors are Cruz at 8%, Rubio at 7%, Carson at 6% and Bush at 5%), ♦ illegal immigration (55% trust Trump, followed by Cruz at 15%, Rubio at 10%), and ♦ ISIS (47% prefer Trump, 21% Cruz, 7% Bush and 6% Christie).

Here’s the historical trend for this specific poll: (more…)

A national poll from Emerson College (full pdf below) shows essentially the same results from recent polling organizations.  Donald Trump with a significant lead at 36%, followed by Ted Cruz at 21% and Marco Rubio in third at 13%.

The sample sizes are small, but the results are consistent with larger poll samples (field narrowed to top nine polled results – and graphic adjusted accordingly):

(Methodology Extracted) The Emerson College Polling Society poll was conducted from Thursday, December 17 through Sunday, December 20, 2015. (more…)

Facing the reality of diminished usefulness as a South Carolina splitter, Senator Lindsey Graham has announced he is “suspending” (ie. dropping out) his campaign to run for President.  He is the fourth candidate to exit the race. (Perry, Walker and Jindal prior)

Unfortunately this disrupts our previously unblemished record of successfully naming the drop-outs before they occur, RATTS!! (We thought Rand Paul was going to be next). Here’s Senator Grahams’ announcement:

With Donald Trump and Ted Cruz/Marco Rubio holding such severe polling majority positions in South Carolina the usefulness of Lindsey was essentially nil. Lindsey quitting now allows candidates Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush a little more space to gobble up some South Carolina voters. (more…)

CBS coordinated with YouGov to present three “battleground state” panel polls today.  The polling methodology is rather peculiar because it’s not random sample polling, but rather targeted specifically to prior respondents of same, albeit earlier, YouGov polling.  They fill in the non-repeat respondents from other prior contacted buckets.

The downside to this panel-approach is it’s essentially like taking a focus group and tracking their trend over-time, filling in those who don’t show up for the next interview by reaching out to other focus groups to fill the void.  This type of on-line polling is not scientific and prone to flaws and/or manipulation by the interpreter of the data.

The pollster is reaching out to a specific data-set, and in order to achieve the needed total number they need to reach out to ‘known sub-sets‘ within their data-base.  In order for this approach to be useful – the integrity of the people gathering the data has to be beyond reproach.  (more…)