Poll: Whose Fault Is It that Ben Carson is Pulling Ahead of Donald Trump in the Polls? 

Neurosurgeon and man who’s so soft-spoken you almost don’t notice everything he says is bonkers Ben Carson is tip-toeing ahead of Donald Trump in at least one national poll. It’s the first time this election cycle anyone other than Trump has been in the lead on the Republican side. Who’s to blame for this?

It should be emphasized that Carson’s is a very tentative lead indeed: a New York Times/CBS poll found that Carson is the pick for 26 percent of likely Republican primary voters, with Trump in second place at 22 percent. That’s within the margin of error, and gives us the tantalizing possibility of a dead heat between a man who likes to robustly shout his thoughts about Muslims and a man who half-mumbles them into his collar. A Monmouth University poll of Iowa Republican primary voters released Monday shows Carson leading Trump by 14 points there, 32 percent to 18 percent. The two were tied back in August. And because polls this early are essentially meaningless, it’s worth noting that even a CBS poll last week showed the two were still tied.

Trump, it must be said, does not believe the polls that show him not winning. He likes the other polls better.

Trump also told Matt Lauer during the Today Show’s town hall Monday that he specifically doesn’t believe the Iowa poll.

Trump managed to insult most of Iowa last week by re-tweeting a comment saying they have “issues in the brain” because of all the Monsanto corn they’re eating. He’s attempting to rebound by tweeting and re-tweeting furious comments about Carson, including one about him and other candidates allowing the country to be “overrun” by The Wrong Kind of Immigrants:

Anyway, there’s no chance Trump is slipping in the polls, and if for some reason he is, he’ll claw his way back to the top with a judicious application of his usual charm. But if not, whose fault is it? Vote below!

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Carson speaks outside the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity at Iowa State University, Saturday, October 24, 2015. Photo via AP Images