Trump Scores Well In New Hampshire Poll

The race for the Republican presidential nomination gets weirder every day. It seems like nearly every nut-job in the party wants to be the candidate in 2012. It was already pretty strange when the candidates just included Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin. Then they were joined by the likes of Rick Santorum, Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich.

But even that wasn't weird enough, so black businessman and radio pundit Herman Cain joined the crowd. Then Minnesota's favorite nut, Michele Bachmann, joined the Republican circus. And some say that Alabama former judge Roy Moore (known for violating a court order by posting the ten commandments) is also considering joining the already crowded field.

But perhaps the oddest candidate of all is businessman and television reality show host Donald Trump. When he first announced that he might run for the nomination, few people took him seriously. But lately he has been running hard and people are starting to notice. Although he has been divorced and married several times, and admitted that he's seen fraud perpetrated on Wall Street (a felony) and didn't report it, it was reported the other day that many christian fundamentalist "values" voters are giving him serious consideration (which makes me wonder just what those "values" are).

But surprisingly, it seems that Trump is getting some traction in the race for the nomination. A Public Policy Polling survey (taken of usual primary voters between March 31st and April 3rd) in New Hampshire shows that Trump has vaulted into second place among all candidates in that state -- only a single digit behind Mitt Romney. Here is how the numbers came out:

Mitt Romney...............27%
Donald Trump...............21%
Mike Huckabee...............12%
Newt Gingrich...............12%
Ron Paul...............9%
Sarah Palin...............7%
Tim Pawlenty...............4%
Michele Bachmann...............3%
Someone else...............7%

Frankly, I was shocked that Trump could outpoll Huckabee, Gingrich, Paul and Palin. It seems that he has struck a real chord with the birther/teabagger crowd in the state because he has been pushing the idea that President Obama was not born in America every chance he gets. Although the birther/teabaggers only make up about 30% of the Republican Party in New Hampshire, Trump has quickly become their favorite candidate.

While Romney finished first overall, there was a part of the poll that seemed to indicate he might have trouble in the primary. The Republican voters were asked if they could vote for a candidate that supported a mandate to buy insurance on a state level (as Romney did when the governor of Massachusetts). Here's what they said:

Yes...............14%
No...............61%
Unsure...............25%

This could be what is keeping Romney from the frontrunner mantle. And you can be sure if any voter doesn't know he supported a state program almost identical to "Obamacare" when the primaries roll around, all the other candidates will be only too happy to enlighten them.

The upshot of all this is that there is no real favorite in the race yet. No one, including Romney, has inspired the voters. Even though Trump has vaulted into second place in New Hampshire, there is no evidence he can attract any voters other than the birther/teabaggers. And all the other candidates seem to be just spinning their wheels.

This has all the earmarks of a wild and wooly and very entertaining race -- one that could go all the way to the convention.