Surprise In New GOP Poll Shows Ben Carson Tied With Donald Trump

Ben Carson is now statistically tied with Donald Trump in the Republican presidential race, according to the latest NBC/WSJ poll of registered Republicans. While Trump is polling at 21 percent of Republican primary voters, Carson is right there at 20 percent, a virtual statistical dead heat when the margin of error is taken into account.

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins had just 10 percent of Republican primary voters and Trump led with 19 percent, according to the same poll conducted in July.

The poll was conducted Sept. 20-24 with 256 Democratic primary voters and 230 Republican primary voters.

The poll places both Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio at third place with 11 percent each. The closest Republican candidates register in the single digits: Jeb Bush has 7 percent, John Kasich holds 6 percent and Ted Cruz comes in at 5 percent. All other candidates hold 3 percent of voters or less.

At 7 percent, Bush has lost the most support since the previous poll, according to the Journal. Twenty-two percent of Republican primary voters picked Bush as their candidate in June; that number dropped to 14 percent in July.

Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton still leads but Bernie Sanders is gaining ground. Clinton holds 53 percent of Democratic primary voters while Sanders is 15 points behind with 38 percent. If Vice President Joe Biden is added into the mix, Clinton’s lead falls to 42 percent, and she holds just a 7 point lead over Sanders, while 17 percent of Democratic primary voters pick Biden as their candidate.

Whether Biden decides to take a run at the election or not, Clinton is still losing support. According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of Democratic primary voters that listed her as their first choice has dropped from 59 percent in July and 75 percent in June.

With or without Biden, other Democrats in the race place at 1 percent or less.

256 registered Democratic primary voters (with a margin of error of plus-minus 6.1 percentage points) and 230 Republican primary voters (with a margin of error of plus-minus 6.5 percentage points) were polled Sept. 20-24.