Cruz Overtakes Trump Nationally

by JASmius



A blip?  Statistical noise?  Too little, too late?  Irrelevant to South Carolina and then Nevada and the "SEC primary" State contests beyond, all of which Obamedia polls show Trump running away with?

Maybe, maybe not.  But this isn't the first national survey showing the Texas senator on top of the billionaire slumlord, so one would think it has to be indicative of something significant, right?:

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has overtaken businessman Donald Trump in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News national poll of likely Republican voters.

Here's how the six remaining candidates stack up, according to the poll:

Ted Cruz: 28%
Donald Trump: 26%
Marco Rubio: 17%
John Kasich: 11%
Ben Carson: 10%
Jeb Bush: 4%

In head-to-head matchups, both Cruz and Rubio would beat Trump by double digits, according to the poll, while the rest of the field would lose to Trump, who has led the field for most of the race since his announcement in June.

"When you see a number this different, it means you might be right on top of a shift in the campaign," GOP pollster Bill McInturff told the Journal. He and Democrat pollster Fred Yang conducted the survey. [emphasis added]

Bringing us to the next salient question: What has happened recently in the GOP race that could cause such a shift away from Trump and toward Senator Cruz?  And then we remember The Donald's fairly spectacular meltdown at the South Carolina Republican debate last Saturday, where he went hardcore Bushophobic in 9/11 Trutherism and "Bush lied, people died" and full-throatedly defended Planned Parenthood using Democrat talking points.

According to this survey, it did finally open some voter eyes:

The poll was conducted February 14-16, after Saturday's South Carolina debate, with some respondents saying Trump's performance there affecting their opinions.

"He just lost his cool," said Daniel Cleveland of Spartanburg, South Carolina. "It was the first time I’ve seen him lose his cool like that. He was very upset."

"I thought at first maybe he was serious, but the more I watched him, to me he is not serious," said Bonnie Kartes of Buckeye, Arizona.

Welcome to the island, Bonnie.  Whether you're bringing enough recovering ex-Trumpmaniacs with you to deny Hairboy a winning streak that launches his momentum into an unstoppable juggarnaut remains to be seen.  But we can always hope and pray, can't we?