New CNN Poll Shows Rise of Fiorina, Rubio and Decline of Trump, Carson and Walker

A new CNN poll released today and conducted post-debate shows substantial movement among several Republican candidates compared to a CNN poll conducted just 11 days earlier.  Donald Trump's support dropped 8% while Ben Carson's numbers fell off by 5%.  Meanwhile, Carly Fiorina's poll numbers climbed 13% while Sen. Marco Rubio's support jumped 8%

Carly Fiorina

It appears to me that the field is sorting itself out.  Commentators talk about two groups, outsiders and establishment, but I think there is more likely three groups:  outsiders, establishment and outsiders who have been inside (still working on a better term).  In the outsider group, I'd put Trump Fiorina and Carson.   Bush, Christie, Kasich, Walker, Graham and Pataki are pretty firmly part of the GOP establishment.  While my outsider/insider group is made up of Rubio, Cruz, Huckabee, Paul, Santorum and Jindal.

My guess is the GOP field will eventually winnow itself down to three candidates, one from each of the respective camps.  I'm betting right now on Fiorina, Rubio and Bush.  I think someone like Rubio could satisfy the establishment and outsiders enough to be the nominee.   But he may well need to put a Fiorina type on the candidate to satisfy the outsider anti-Establishment wing of the Republican Party.

As far as Donald Trump goes, I think people expected his balloon to pop in a sudden drop in the polls.  It appears more likely it is going to be a slow deflation.

I expect Scott Walker to soon pull the plug on his candidacy as well as former New York Governor George Pataki.

The new CNN poll shows the top candidates to be:

Trump 24%
Fiorina 15%
Carson 14%
Rubio 11%
Bush 9%
Cruz 6%
Huckabee 6%
Paul 4%
Christie 3%
Kasich 2%
Santorum 1%
Walker 0%
Jindal 0%
Graham 0%

In the previous CNN poll the top candidates looked like this:

Trump 32%
Carson 19%
Bush 9%
Cruz 7%
Huckabee 5%
Walker 5%
Rubio 3%
Paul 3%
Fiorina 2%
Kasich 2%
Christie 2%
Jindal 0%
Graham 0%

Note:  Polling results are rounded off so if a candidate is at 0% that means the candidate had less than 1/2 of 1% of support in the poll.