Over the weekend, Donald Trump dismissed two new polls showing him trailing Ben Carson in Iowa. "“I don’t believe those polls, by the way," he said, "because both of those pollsters don’t like me." The pollsters being referred to were Quinnipiac University and Des Moines' Selzer & Co. -- both of which showed Trump in the lead without Trump raising any objections.
On Monday, two more polls offered the same result: Trump is trailing Carson in Iowa, by a wide margin.
The most prominent comes from Monmouth University, which shows Carson up by 14 points. What's more, Carson is also the second choice of nearly a fifth of Republicans, compared to only 12 percent that have Trump as a back-up.
Of the last five polls conducted in Iowa, including a Loras College survey also released Monday, Trump trails in four. In only one is he tied with Carson.
The difference in that one, by the way, is that it's an online poll. As we noted earlier this month, Trump usually does better in online polls than in live-dial polls. Carson does worse.
Since the last time Monmouth polled in the state, the percentage of voters viewing Trump unfavorably has increased by five percentage points. He's still viewed much less favorably than Carson -- but more favorably than Jeb Bush, despite Bush bouncing back a bit.
One interesting bit of data in the poll deals with the candidates' presences in the state. Trump has been in Iowa more often since January than any other state, with 23 trips, according to the National Journal's travel tracker. Rick Santorum has been there over 120 times in the same period. But when asked by Monmouth, 11 percent of those who say they'd seen a candidate in person said they'd seen Trump. Only 1 percent said they'd seen Santorum. (The candidate most seen in-person, according to the poll? Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who's polling at 6 percent.)
The most telling question, though, was this one.
Which explains why the two candidates battling for the top position right now are ones who have never spent much time with the national Republican party.
