Mitch Perry
The latest poll out of Iowa is not good news for the two Florida Republicans competing in the GOP presidential primary contest.
Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are tied in fifth place with 6 percent of the vote in a Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll released over the weekend.
Real estate mogul Donald Trump continues to lead in this survey with 23 precent support.
Most surprisingly, retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson is now just five points back in second place with 18 percent support.
Ted Cruz and Scott Walker are tied for third with 8 percent, followed by the two Floridians. Carly Fiorina (5 percent), and Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul (both 4 percent) complete the list.
In the last Iowa Poll, in May taken by Bloomberg/Des Moines Register, Trump had the highest unfavorable rating of all the Republicans, back when he was tied for ninth place with 4 percent. Trump has almost completely reversed his rating. Then, 27 percent had positive feelings about him and 63 percent negative. Now, it’s 61 percent positive, 35 percent negative.
Bush continues to struggle in Iowa. Only 45 percent of likely caucusgoers have favorable feelings about him; 50 percent view him negatively. Bush has yet to spend a dime on TV advertising here, but his super PAC launches ads in September, hoping to use its financial advantage to tell the story of Bush’s conservative record to a larger audience.
The Iowa Poll of 400 likely Republican caucusgoers was conducted Aug. 23-26 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
