For the second time in two days, Ben Carson has knocked Donald Trump from his perch atop the field in Iowa, according to new polling of Hawkeye State Republicans.
The latest comes from the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics on Friday, which shows the retired neurosurgeon leading the field with 28%, to the billionaire businessman’s 19%.
Those results are very similar to a Quinnipiac survey of GOP Iowans that came out on Thursday. In that poll, Carson opened up an 8 percentage point lead over Trump, 28% to 20%.
The polls differ on third place, however. The Register has Texas Sen. Ted Cruz with 10%, followed by Marco Rubio with 9%. In the Quinnipiac survey, their positions are reversed: 13% support Rubio and 10% are for Cruz.
Quinnipiac’s survey is the first major poll to find Trump trailing by a significant margin nationally or in the four early states since June.
The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Carson winning big with two key groups: women back Carson over Trump 33%-13% and white evangelicals support him 36% to Trump’s 17%.
In response to the Quinnipiac poll, Trump retweeted a tweet about Iowa voters: “#BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa. Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain?” He later removed the retweet from his Twitter feed, blaming an intern.
Carson is the only candidate in the GOP field to consistently poll in the top tier near Trump, running a strong second in most national polling in the past month and easily outpacing other competitors. Former tech CEO Carly Fiorina’s post-debate bump recently evaporated, although Rubio has been steadily rising in the polls.
Trump joked Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day” that he might consider Carson for a spot on his ticket.
“I mean, stranger things have happened,” he said.
The Quinnipiac poll shows Trump does well with Iowa Republicans on issues like taxes, the economy and illegal immigration. But he fares less well on his personal attributes: 89% call Carson honest, versus 48% who see Trump that way. And 87% say Carson cares about their well-being, compared to 49% for Trump.
The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg politics surveyed 401 registered Iowa voters who say they will likely attend the 2016 Republican caucuses. Their poll was conducted October 16-19, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
Quinnipiac surveyed 574 likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers from October 14-20 for a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.