Arguably the battleground state of Florida is where the primary will be won or lost in March of  2016.   The 100 winner-take-all delegates are the key prize toward primary victory on the GOP side of the presidential race.

The latest poll (full pdf below) from Florida shows Donald Trump growing his lead from September over home state competitors Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush.  Several of the internal metrics are interesting, including Trump being the only candidate to extend a lead over Clinton since Joe Biden is removed.  Head-to-Head Trump beats Clinton 49 to 40:

Other interesting notes: ♦ Rand Paul shows remarkable support from African American voters in Florida. ♦ Carly Fiorina has completely collapsed. ♦ Chris Christie’s earlier support is also gone.  ♦ Ben Carson remains third. (more…)

The third debate is being broadcast on CNBC and being held at the Coors Events Center at the University of Colorado Boulder  – Live Broadcast CNBC Stations at 8pm/EST.

Here’s a Live Stream Link:

CNBC Has just announced the debate lineup for the next GOP Debate on October 28th.  The RNC sanctioned debate will be held at the Coors Events Center at the University of Colorado Boulder and broadcast live on CNBC at 8pm/EST:

Via CNBC – Today marks the close of the five-week window for determining eligibility based on national polls. The results were based on methodically sound and recognized national polls conducted by NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN and Bloomberg. The debate will be divided into two parts. (more…)

Multiple political stories breaking today (consider this an open discussion thread):

♦  Dr. Ben Carson is taking a 2 week break from campaigning to focus on his book tour –  […] According to ABC News, the next time Carson will publicly campaign will be Oct. 28, the day of the GOP debate, which will take place in Colorado. The last time Carson did a public campaign event was Oct. 2.

Carson will also catch up on fundraising events over the next two weeks. He has 20 events scheduled. In the third quarter of this year, Carson raised $20 million.

(more…)

• Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz TOTAL = 49%
• Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Chris Christie TOTAL = 31%

Morning Consult Poll – […] Trump takes 31 percent of the vote in the new Morning Consult poll, easily outpacing retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s 13 percent. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) finishes in third place, at 10 percent, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), at 7 percent.

[…] The Morning Consult tracking poll surveyed 1,983 registered voters between October 2-5, for a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. A subsample of 807 self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning independents carried a margin of error of plus or minus 3.45 percentage points. (link)

Yesterday Reuters released a poll result showing Donald Trump with 34%.  Oddly enough, IPSOS Conducted a Poll (commissioned by Reuters earlier in September), however Reuters never used/published it as a stand alone?   [ Subsequently IPSOS Released it yesterday ]

These are findings from an Ipsos poll conducted for Thomson Reuters September 12-16, 2015. For the survey, a sample of 1,304 Americans, including 511 Democrats, 481 Republicans, and 172 Independents – RELEASED YESTERDAY  (link)

(more…)

With 20 percent of Republican voters, Donald Trump is the clear leader in the crowded Republican presidential primary field, but he trails any of three leading Democratic contenders by wide margins in general election matchups, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today. (more)

This national poll data, in combination with the Florida poll data released yesterday, reflects a devastating reality for the GOPe professional political class and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the GOPe financiers.

While there is still a long way to go, the strategic plans of the white wine spritzer and crust-less sandwich crowd are being compromised by Donald Trump and his coalition of supporters who are rebuking traditional candidates.

(more…)

WASHINGTON DC – Kentucky GOP senator and likely 2016 presidential candidate Rand Paul is “not saying [he’s] completely opposed” to “maybe even bombing” the genocidal Islamist terrorists known as ISIS. But Paul also isn’t saying that he supports bombing ISIS. Politico reports Paul has “mixed feelings”: 

“I have mixed feelings about it,” the senator said Monday evening of the recent strikes against ISIL targets. “I’m not saying I’m completely opposed to helping with arms or maybe even bombing, but I am concerned that ISIS is big and powerful because we protected them in Syria for a year. Do you know who also hates ISIS and who is bombing them? Assad, the Syrian government.”

“So a year ago, the same people who want to bomb ISIS wanted to bomb Syria last year,” he continued in remarks were first reported by WBKO.

It’s not true, as Paul implies, that everyone who wants to take military action against ISIS supported military action last year against the Syrian regime.  (read more)

It would be more than important to listen to this audio/video interview with Mark Levin before dropping below the fold:

You’ll note that Senator Ted Cruz seems to express disgust and outrage against the tactics deployed by what he calls the “DC Machine”. Cruz states that their conduct in the Mississippi runoff was “incredibly disappointing” etc.
However, we now know -from specific documentation provided by internal research into the activity around the Mississippi campaign- that the National Republican Senatorial Campaign, the NRSC, was the financier for the attack ads against Chris McDaniel.
So who is the “DC Machine”, this “leadership of the NRSC”, that Senator Ted Cruz is so “incredibly disappointed” in ? (more…)