AP Photo 2016 Ben Carson surges in new national poll

Ben Carson's campaign continues to rise.

The latest sign came Thursday when a national Monmouth University poll showing the retired neurosurgeon and tea party darling in second place nationally with 18 percent support, behind only Donald Trump, who won 30 percent among Republican primary voters. While both candidates got a bump in the findings, Carson is the one whose standing spiked: his numbers jumped 13 percentage points, compared to Trump who gained 4 points.


Earlier in the week, Monmouth University found Carson tied with Trump in Iowa and also surging among evangelicals, a crucial constituency for any Republican primary candidate in the state. A Des Moines Register poll over the weekend also showed Carson gaining ground on Trump in the state.

His campaign reported raising a solid $6 million in August, a month when fundraising usually dips for campaigns.

Both Trump and Carson appear to be drawing from a pool of disaffected conservatives who are attracted to their outsider credentials and anti-establishment rhetoric. Each regularly attracts huge crowds that eclipse those of their competitors in the Republican primary field.



But stylistically, the two outsiders couldn’t be more different. Carson rarely raises his voice, instead letting the content of his public comments – especially those criticizing modern society’s “p.c. police” — fuel his support among grassroots conservatives. Trump, by comparison, prefers the hammer to the scalpel, embracing the ostentatious and pounding rivals like Jeb Bush with a barrage of criticism of anyone he wants.

The danger for Trump is that Carson is emerging as the safe harbor for Trump voters who are uncomfortable with the real estate mogul's excess: Trump prevailed in all hypothetical head-to-head matchups in the Monmouth, except against Carson, who earned 55 percent support to Trump’s 36 percent.

The neurosurgeon also had the highest favorability numbers among all the GOP candidates in the field, with 67 percent saying they had a favorable view of him while 26 percent said they had an unfavorable view of him. Meanwhile, the Monmouth poll found, 59 percent said they had a favorable view of him while 29 percent said they had an unfavorable view.



