TRUMP TRUMPED? – AT 9:32 A.M. ET:   This is getting an enormous amount of play across the internet and in TV news.   It could (I stress could) indicate what will happen to Donald Trump once the GOP presidential field thins out.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Donald Trump dominates the new Monmouth national poll of the Republican presidential race — in every category except one.

Trump leads the horse race, with 30 percent, to Ben Carson's 18 percent, with Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz tied for third at 8 percent. (Marco Rubio is next at 5 percent, Carly Fiorina at 4 percent, and Scott Walker is at 3 percent.) Trump leads among various subgroups sorted by ideology, policy preference, and age. And he leads in head-to-head matchups with other Republican candidates.

Except one. The pollsters asked who voters would choose if the race for the Republican nomination were between Trump and a single other candidate. Trump prevailed over Bush (56-37), over Walker (53-38), over Cruz (48-41), over Rubio (52-38), and the rest of the field, except for Carson. In a Trump-Carson matchup, Trump loses handily, with 36 percent to Carson's 55. That's a pretty vivid measure of Carson's appeal.

The poll shows a few other things. Perhaps the most striking is the fall of Walker, whose three percent rating is down eight points from his 11 percent rating in August. In addition, Rand Paul is now down to two percent, from six percent in July. On the other hand, Cruz and Fiorina are steadily climbing, each up two points from last month. And Marco Rubio, now at 5 percent, remains down from his high of 9 percent in June.

COMMENT:  Ben Carson's rise is more impressive than Trump's, as Trump has been getting all the publicity.  I think the September 16th debate will be critical.  It will start to narrow the field, and we'll see who's likely to survive.  The biggest surprise thus far, to me at least, is the inability of Marco Rubio to gain much traction.  He is an attractive, extremely knowledgeable candidate from the critical state of Florida, but cannot seem to reach the public.

It is still very early in the game.  Once the field narrows, and the public is forced to concentrate on a smaller number of candidates, and to size them up, numbers will change rapidly.

September 4, 2015