Ben Carson took a tumble in the latest national poll, falling 7 points from last month in the Quinnipiac University survey, after weathering heavy criticism for his lack of foreign policy expertise and scrutiny about his personal tale of redemption.

After pulling a virtual tie with Donald Trump in the previous poll, the retired neurosurgeon dropped to third place with 16 percent support among Republican respondents. Trump moved up 3 percentage points to dominate the field at 27 percent.


Also enjoying a bump — Sen. Marco Rubio, who moved up 3 percentage points and into second place with 17 percent support, and Sen. Ted Cruz, who also gained 3 percentage points and tied with Carson at 16 percent. The 3-point hikes for Trump, Rubio and Cruz are all within the poll's margin of error.

Behind Trump and the triumvirate vying for position behind the Manhattan businessman, no other candidate finished in the double digits.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush earned 5 percent, followed by former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina at 3 percent. No other candidate received more than 2 percent support, and 8 percent of respondents were undecided.

Carson's dip follows a series of unforced errors, including a flap over his assertion that China is involved in the Syrian conflict and his struggle to answer what nations he would call first to form a coalition against the Islamic State. He also has come under increased scrutiny for the stories he has often retold about his violent childhood and his religious redemption that helped him to become a highly successful pediatric neurosurgeon.

After surging in the early fall, nipping at the heels of Trump and even surpassing him in some polls, Carson appears to be settling back down in some surveys.

“Poll numbers will go up and down. It’s a marathon, not a sprint," Carson told NBC's "Today" on Tuesday in addressing his slide among Iowa Republicans specifically.

This most recent poll delivered some good news for Rubio and Cruz, who have both recently upped their profiles on the campaign trail and engaged in some nasty back-and-forths about their respective political records, especially regarding immigration.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton continues to enjoy a sizable advantage over her rival Bernie Sanders, outpolling the Vermont senator 2-to-1 — 60 percent to 30 percent — among registered Democratic voters surveyed nationwide. The only other candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, took just 2 percent, with 6 percent of Democratic respondents undecided.

Matched against potential Republican challengers next November, Clinton performed better than in Quinnipiac's previous survey. Facing Carson, Clinton earned 46 percent to 43 percent, a 6-point jump from the last survey, when Carson held a 50 percent to 40 percent advantage against the former secretary of state. Against Trump this time, Clinton earned 47 percent to 41 percent, an improvement from 46 to 43 percent in the late October/early November survey. Matched against Rubio, Clinton led 45 percent to 44 percent, while Rubio held a 46 percent to 41 percent advantage in the last poll.

More than six in 10 American voters surveyed — 63 percent — said Clinton would have a good chance of beating any potential Republican opponent in the general election, while 32 percent said she would not. About 69 percent of independents gave Clinton a better chance of winning than a GOP challenger, while 27 percent did not. Conversely, just 46 percent of all respondents said that Trump would beat the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, while 49 percent said he would not. Among independents, the split is similar, at 47 percent to 48 percent.

But Sanders fared just as well in some head-to-heads, even better than the current Democratic front-runner, holding wider advantages in matchups over Carson, Trump and Cruz than did Clinton.

As has been the case in recent national polling, Trump and Clinton led the field among voters in their respective parties but failed to register positive image or trustworthiness ratings from the larger sample of all registered voters.

Trump holds a net negative favorability rating of 35 percent favorable to 57 percent unfavorable (-22 points), while Clinton earned a more respectable, if still negative rating of 44 percent to 51 percent. Sanders, on the other hand, earned the highest net favorability rating among all respondents of any candidate in either party (at +13 points), with 44 percent favorable, 31 percent unfavorable and 24 percent who said they still have not heard enough to decide.

Among just Democrats, however, Clinton earned the highest net favorability (85 percent to 11 percent), while Rubio led Republican hopefuls with a net-positive rating of +58 points (66 percent to 8 percent), narrowly edging out Cruz (65 percent to 9 percent) and Carson (67 percent to 13 percent).

Only 35 percent of all respondents said Trump is honest and trustworthy, similar to the 36 percent who said the same of Clinton, while 59 percent and 60 percent, respectively, said they were not.

The poll was conducted Nov. 23-30, surveying 1,453 registered voters nationwide via landlines and cellphones, with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. The sample included 672 Republicans with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points, and 573 Democrats with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.



CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Carson dropped six points from last month. He dropped seven points.