Election 2016: Who’s Got The Upper Hand?

With the 2016 presidential election less than a year away, Hillary Clinton still appears to be cruising to the Democratic nomination, but the GOP race is still up in the air.

Judging from the polls, four candidates seem to be on top – political outsiders Donald Trump and Ben Carson and Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio – with a fifth candidate, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, foundering but still potentially formidable.

Who’s going to win the GOP nomination? Who should?

Public Policy Polling director Tom Jensen, who recently polled voters in South Carolina, says Trump is still in the lead nationwide but his support appears to be fading; Carson is polling a very close second, though he’s not adding to his current base of support. (He’s not losing his base either, though – which is good news for Carson, after a rough week in the spotlight.)

Jensen says Cruz and Rubio are both gaining support, though they still have a ways to go to overtake Trump and Carson. Still, Jensen says there’s plenty of time for things to change: at this time four years ago, Newt Gingrich was leading in the polls, with Herman Cain a close second. Mitt Romney’s surge was yet to come.

Tom Jensen spoke Thursday with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.

 

Ashley DeSena of Hillsborough is a Republican who recently ran for the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners (a nonpartisan race); formerly of the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough, she’s now operations coordinator at the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. She says Republicans are definitely seeking an outsider, but she doesn’t see Trump or Carson remaining atop the polls for long: she’s expecting Cruz and Rubio to emerge as the top two candidates, though it’s still too early to tell which of them will wind up as the nominee.

Ashley DeSena spoke with Aaron Keck on Tuesday.

 

Primary day for North Carolina is March 15. Jensen says regardless of who wins the GOP nomination, he expects the general election to be very close, particularly in North Carolina – which will also likely have an extremely close race for governor, and possibly also for U.S. Senator if the Democrats can nominate a viable challenger to take on Richard Burr.