Donald Trump said Saturday that his supporters are so loyal
that he would not lose backers even if he were to shoot someone in the middle
of downtown Manhattan.
I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot
somebody, okay, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?
Trump said at a
rally in Sioux Center, Iowa as the audience laughed. "It's, like,
incredible.
Trump has previously boasted about the devotion of his fans,
but the new comment is the most extreme example of such a remark.
About half of respondents
backing the real estate mogul said they were absolutely certain that they will vote for Trump
As the Iowa Caucuses near and the Republican presidential
field enters cage-match mode, there has been some movement in "the three
lanes" within the party.
To recap, those three lanes are the social
conservative lane, the establishment lane and the Donald Trump lane.
The lanes in the GOP that we have discussed are not solid stable groupings. They are made up of voters that hold mixed and sometimes
contradictory views.
There are, for instance, supporters of establishment
candidates who have tea party leanings or who also consider themselves to be
"values voters.
Voter groups that have supported the GOP's main
establishment candidates are beginning to peel off to join other candidates,
particularly Mr. Trump.
You can see that peeling away most clearly when you look at
changes in support between December and January using the five-way field of Mr.
Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Former Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson. So, Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz are up and
the other three are all down a bit.
But the movement with voter groups within the poll is more
dramatic and more telling. Consider the changes among self-described tea party
voters.
Again Mr Trump and Mr. Cruz are up a bit in this breakdown,
and the other three are down. But when you reorganize those candidates in their
proper "lanes" the numbers tell a more striking story.
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