For all the talk of a Trump slump, he’s still in better shape than anybody else in the national polls. The new national CBS News poll has him ahead of his closest competitor, Ben Carson, 27 percent to 21 percent.
The rest of the Republican field is in single digits, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz inching up into third place with nine percent, followed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio with eight percent. Businesswoman Carly Fiorina and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush follow at six percent each. Former Governor Mike Huckabee has also slipped considerably since the summer, from eight percent in August to just two percent today.
The only national poll in the past few weeks was the Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll that had Carson with 24 percent and Trump with 17 percent.
Trump did enjoy a double-digit lead over all competitors through most of August and September. Trump’s recent mid-to-high 20s share of the respondents is down slightly from early September; Monmouth had him at 30 percent, CNN had him at 32 percent, and the ABC News/Washington Post poll from that stretch had him at 33 percent.
Perhaps the best news for Trump in the CBS News poll is that 50 percent of Republican respondents say they are “very” confident in his economic decisions; another 33 percent are “somewhat” confident.
Also note this assessment of GOP primary voter priorities:
Republican primary voters choose honesty (39 percent) as the most important quality in their choice of a candidate, though nearly as many pick being a strong leader (36 percent). Far fewer choose caring about people like them (13 percent), having the right experience (eight percent), or being able to win the general election in November (two percent) as most important.