Retired Hopkins neurosurgeon and former Fox News contributor Ben Carson exhibits all the sign of someone who is about to make a decent run for president. He’s started a super PAC; he campaigned on behalf of several other politicians in the last election; he starred in a partisan television documentary that aired in November; he joined a major party; he’s written a ton of books; and he’s raised a ton of money. But, if statistics website FiveThirtyEight is right, he may want to scrap his plans. Because he doesn’t have a prayer.
Carson has been polling very well recently. CNN ranked him second among Republicans (first was Florida Gov. Jeb Bush) for the 2016 presidential race. He also placed second in an Iowa poll, and he made a respectable showing in a New Hampshire poll. So what’s the problem?
Well, according to FiveThirtyEight, he’s got a shot in the Iowa caucuses, but that isn’t saying much. Iowa goes easy on candidates who have never held elected office, whereas a major party hasn’t nominated such a person since 1952. His high ratio of support to name recognition (in the Iowa poll only 49 percent of respondents knew enough about him to even have an opinion) the blog pins on the lack of scrutiny. Voters mostly know him from his appearances on Fox News, his criticism of President Obama, and his sympathetic TV doc.
His numbers will have to go down once he faces some real mud slinging. Remember when he called Obamacare “slavery, in way” and when he compared gay marriage to bestiality?
If you’ve forgotten, there will no doubt be a couple GOP hopefuls ready to remind you.
